“Three hours’ riding will take us to the foremost bulls,” answered the Indian. “The cows are a day or two farther off; but we cannot afford to pick our animals. We must take the first that comes.”
Descending the ridge we were soon in movement towards the sky-line of the south-west.
Towards mid-day the leading files of the herd were close at hand.
The ground was broken into many ridges, having between them valleys that afforded perfect facilities for approach. It was not long, therefore, ere a shot from the rifle of the Sioux had brought down a young bull, near whose prostrate body our camp was at once made, and hunger fully satisfied—the tongue and some of the marrow bones being quickly put to roast over a fire made of sage sticks and dry grass.
The plan now formed by Red Cloud was to keep along the outskirts of the main body of the advancing column, which he judged to be many miles in length.
It was not, he thought, necessary to proceed much farther on our present course, as the Indians with whom he hoped to fall in, would be sure to follow the movements of the buffalo, and to have their camp one day or so behind the main body.
In this his surmises were perfectly correct. The next day saw the herd moving steadily towards the north-east; but it also brought a body of Indians into sight, whose quick eyes were not slow to detect the presence of strangers in the vicinity.
Having scouted for a time along ridges that commanded a view of our camp, a body of six braves, satisfied with their observations, came riding up at a gallop. They proved to belong to a branch of the Blood Indians, the main body of which tribe was now “pitching” two days farther south, near the range of wooded hills known as the Cypress Mountains.
The buffalo, they said, had only recently passed the American boundary-line; and there had been some conflicts between Indian bands which had followed them over British territory, and the people of their own (the Blood) tribe.