“And why not?”
“Why how could they be two,” asked the guide in astonishment, “when it rained yesterday before sun-up? Thur made since the rain, yu’ll admit that?”
We now remembered the rain, and acknowledged the truth of this reasoning. The animals must have passed since it rained; but why not immediately after, in the early morning? How could Redwood tell that it was the hour of noon? How?
“Easy enough, comrades,” replied he.
“Any greenhorn mout do that,” added Ike. The rest, however, were puzzled and waited the explanation.
“I tells this a way,” continued the guide. “Ef the buffler had passed by hyur, immediately after the rain, thar tracks wud a sunk deeper, and thar wud a been more mud on the trail. As thar ain’t no great slobber about, ye see, I make my kalklations that the ground must a been well dried afore they kim along, and after such a wet, it could not a been afore noon at the least—so that’s how I know the buffler passed at that hour.”
We were all interested in this craft of our guides, for without consulting each other they had both arrived at the same conclusion by the same process of mental logic. They had also determined several other points about the buffalo—such as that they had not all gone together, but in a straggling herd; that some had passed more rapidly than the rest; that no hunters were after them; and that it was probable they were not bound upon any distant migration, but only in search of water; and the direction they had taken rendered this likely enough. Indeed most of the great buffalo roads lead to watering-places, and they have often been the means of conducting the thirsty traveller to the welcome rivulet or spring, when otherwise he might have perished upon the dry plain. Whether the buffalo are guided by some instinct towards water, is a question not satisfactorily solved. Certain it is, that their water paths often lead in the most direct route to streams and ponds, of the existence of which they could have known nothing previously. It is certain that many of the lower animals possess either an “instinct,” or a much keener sense in these matters than man himself. Long before the thirsty traveller suspects the propinquity of water, his sagacious mule, by her joyful hinney, and suddenly altered bearing, warns him of its presence.
We now reasoned that if the buffalo had been making to some watering-place, merely for the purpose of drinking and cooling their flanks, they would, of course, make a delay there, and so give us a chance of coming up. They had a day the start of us, it is true, but we should do our best to overhaul them. The guides assured us we were likely to have good sport before we came up with the great gang. There were straggling groups they had no doubt, some perhaps not over thirsty, that had hung in the rear. In high hopes, then, we turned our heads to the trail, and travelled briskly forward.
We had not gone many hundred yards when a very singular scene was presented to our eyes. We had gained the crest of a ridge, and were looking down into a little valley through which ran the trail. At the bottom of the valley a cloud of dust was constantly rising upward, and very slowly moving away, as the day was quite calm. Although there had been rain a little over thirty hours before, the ground was already parched and dry as pepper. But what caused the dust to rise? Not the wind—there was none. Some animal then, or likely more than one!
At first we could perceive no creature within the cloud, so dun and thick was it; but after a little a wolf dashed out, ran round a bit, and then rushed in again, and then another and another, all of them with open jaws, glaring eyes, manes erect, and tails switching about in a violent and angry manner. Now and then we could only see part of their bodies, or their bushy tails flung upward, but we could hear by their yelping barks that they were engaged in a fierce contest either among themselves, or with some other enemy. It was not among themselves, as Ike and Redwood both affirmed.