Thus our first day is spent.
The Indian hunters keep coming into their camp until a late hour, bringing with them their burdens of buffalo flesh. Fires blaze over the ground, and the savages sit around them, cooking and eating, nearly all the night.
On the following day they do not rouse themselves until a late hour. It is a day of lassitude and idleness; for the meat is hanging over the strings, and they can only wait upon it. They lounge around the camp, mending their bridles and lassos, or looking to their weapons; they lead their horses to the water, and then picket them on fresh ground; they cut large pieces of meat, and broil them over the fires. Hundreds of them are at all times engaged in this last occupation. They seem to eat continually.
Their dogs are busy, too, growling over the knife-stripped bones. They are not likely to leave their feast; they will not stray up the ravine while it lasts. In this thought we find consolation.
The sun is hot all the second day, and scorches us in the dry defile. It adds to our thirst; but we do not regret, this so much, knowing it will hasten the departure of the savages. Towards evening, the tasajo begins to look brown and shrivelled. Another such day and it will be ready for packing.
Our water is out, and we chew the succulent slices of the cactus. These relieve our thirst without quenching it.
Our appetite of hunger is growing stronger. We have eaten all the pinons, and nothing remains but to slaughter one of our horses.
“Let us hold out till to-morrow,” suggests one. “Give the poor brutes a chance. Who knows but what they may flit in the morning?”
This proposition is voted in the affirmative. No hunter cares to risk losing his horse, especially when out upon the prairies.
Gnawed by hunger, we lie waiting for the third day.