Away in the Wilderness

by R. M. Ballantyne

It was a band of these fellows that now went galloping towards Fort Erie, with the long manes and tails of the half-wild horses and the scalp-locks on their dresses and their own long black hair streaming in the wind.

Pemberton and his party soon came up with the young Indians who had remained to chase the buffaloes. He found them sheltered behind a little mound, making preparations for an immediate attack on the animals, which, however, were not yet visible to the men from the fort.

“I do believe they’ve seen buffaloes on the other side of that mound,” said Pemberton, as he rode forward.

He was right. The Indians, of whom there were six, well mounted and armed with strong short bows, pointed to the mound, and said that on the other side of it there were hundreds of buffaloes.

As the animals were so numerous, no objection was made to the fur-traders joining in the hunt, so in another moment the united party leaped from their horses and prepared for action. Some wiped out and carefully loaded their guns, others examined the priming of their pieces, and chipped the edges off the flints to make sure of their not missing fire. All looked to the girths of their saddles, and a few threw off their coats and rolled their shirt-sleeves up to their shoulders, as if they were going to undertake hard and bloody work.

Mr Pemberton took in hand to look after our friend Heywood; the rest were well qualified to look after themselves. In five minutes they were all remounted and rode quietly to the brow of the mound.

Here an interesting sight presented itself. The whole plain was covered with the huge unwieldy forms of the buffaloes. They were scattered about, singly and in groups, grazing or playing or lying down, and in one or two places some of the bulls were engaged in single combat, pawing the earth, goring each other, and bellowing furiously.

After one look, the hunters dashed down the hill and were in the midst of the astonished animals almost before they could raise their heads to look at them. Now commenced a scene which it is not easy to describe correctly. Each man had selected his own group of animals, so that the whole party was scattered in a moment.

“Follow me,” cried Pemberton to Heywood, “observe what I do, and then go try it yourself.”

The fur-trader galloped at full speed towards a group of buffaloes which stood right before him, about two hundred yards off. He carried a single-barrelled gun with a flint lock in his right hand and a bullet in his mouth, ready to re-load. The buffaloes gazed at him for one moment in stupid surprise, and then, with a toss of their heads and a whisk of their tails, they turned and fled. At first they ran with a slow awkward gait, like pigs; and to one who did not know their powers, it would seem that the fast-running horses of the two men would quickly overtake them. But as they warmed to the work their speed increased, and it required the horses to get up their best paces to overtake them.