Tole for breakfast. It had been our only food for nine days. It seemed strange that we should have travelled one hundred and eighty miles, in a country like that we had passed through since leaving Fort William, without killing an animal. But it ceased to appear so, when our worthy guide informed us that no individual had ever come from the Arkansas, in the region of the Fort, to the mountains, with as little suffering as we had. "It is," said he, "a starving {231} country; never any game found in it. The buffalo come into these valleys from the north through the Bull Pen, and go out there when the storms of the autumn warn them to fly to the south for warm winter quarters. But that valley off there, (pointing to a low smooth spot in the horizon), looks mighty like Boyou Salade, my old stamping ground. If it should be, we will have meat before the sun is behind the snow."[127]
We were well pleased with this prospect. Our Mexican servant cried, at the top of his voice, "Esta muy bueno, Señor Kelly, si, muy bueno, este Boyou Salade; mucho carne por nosotros." And the poor fellow had some reasons for this expression of joy, for the tole regimen had been to him what the water gruel of the Mudfog workhouse was to Oliver Twist, except that its excellent flavour had never induced the Mexican "to ask for more." He had, on previous occasions, in company with Kelly, gnawed the ribs of many a fat cow in Boyou Salade; and the instincts of his stomach put him in such a frenzy at the recollection, that although he could only understand the words "Boyou Salade," these were sufficient to induce him to cross {232} himself from the fore-step to the abdomen, and to swear by Santa Gaudaloupe that tole was not food for a Christian mouth.
On the 20th we were early on our way. The small prairie wolf which had howled us to sleep every evening, and howled us awake every morning since we left Independence, was continually greeting us with an ill-natured growl, as we rode along among his hiding places. The streams that were mere rivulets twenty miles back, having received a thousand tributaries, were now heavy and deep torrents. The peaks and mountain swells were clad with hail and snow. Every thing, even ourselves, shivering in our blankets, gave evidence that we were traversing the realms of winter. Still many of the grasses and flowers which usually flourish in high latitudes and elevated places were growing along the radices of the hills, and aided much in giving the whole scene an unusually singular aspect. We were in fine spirits, and in the enjoyment of a voracious appetite. Our expectations of having a shot soon at a buffalo, were perhaps an accessory cause of this last. But be that as it may, we dodged along among the pines and spruce and hemlock and firs {233} about ten miles, and rose over a swell of land covered with small trees in full view of a quiet little band of buffalo. Ye deities who presided of old over the trencher and goblet, did not our palates leap for a tender loin? A halt—our famous old Kentuckian creeps away around a copse of wood—we hear the crack of his deadly rifle—witness the writhing of the buffalo! He lays himself gently down. All is now silent, intense anxiety to observe whether he will rise again and run, as buffalo often do under the smart of a wound, beyond our reach among the hills. No! he curls his tail as in the last agony; he choaks; he is ours! he is ours!
Our knives are quickly hauled from their sheaths—he is rolled upon his brisket—his hide is slit along the spine, and pealed down midrib; one side of it is cut off and spread upon the sand to receive the meat; the flesh on each side of the spine is pared off; the mouth is opened, and the tongue removed from his jaws; the axe is laid to his rib; the heart—the fat—the tender loins—the blood, are taken out—his legs are rifled of their generous marrow bones; all wrapped in the green hide, and loaded on animals, and off to camp in a charming {234} grove of white pine by a cold stream of water under a woody hill!
Who that had seen us stirring our fires that night in the starlight of bright skies among the mountain forests; who that had seen the buffalo ribs propped up before the crackling blaze—the brisket boiling in our camp-kettles; who that had seen us with open countenances yield to these well cooked invitations to "drive dull care away," will not believe that we accepted them, and swallowed against time, and hunger, and tole? Indeed, we ate that night till there was a reasonable presumption that we had eaten enough; and when we had spent a half-hour in this agreeable employment, that presumption was supported by a pile of bones, which if put together by Buffon in his best style, would have supported not only that but another presumption to the like effect. Our hearty old Kentuckian was at home, and we were his guests. He sat at the head of his own board, and claimed to dictate the number of courses with which we should be served. "No, no," said he, as we strode away from the bare ribs which lay round us, to our couches of pine leaves, "no, no, I have eaten with you, fared well, and now you {235} must take courage while you eat with me; no, no, not done yet; mighty good eating to come. Take a rest upon it, if you like, while I cook another turn; but I'll insure you to eat till day peeps. Our meat here in the mountains never pains one. Nothing harms here but pills and lead; many's the time that I have starved six and eight days, and when I have found meat, ate all night; that's the custom of the country. We never borrow trouble from hunger or thirst, and when we have a plenty, we eat the best pieces first, for fear of being killed by some brat of an Indian before we have enjoyed them. You may eat as much as you can; my word for it, this wild meat never hurts one. But your chickens and bacon, &c., in the settlements, it came right near shoving me into the Kenyon when I was down there last."
While the excellent man was giving vent to these kind feelings, he was busy making preparations for another course. The marrow bones were undergoing a severe flagellation; the blows of the old hunter's hatchet were cracking them in pieces, and laying bare the rolls of "trapper's butter" within them. A pound of marrow was {236} thus extracted, and put into a gallon of water heated nearly to the boiling point. The blood which he had dipped from the cavity of the buffalo was then stirred in till the mass became of the consistency of rice soup. A little salt and black pepper finished the preparation. It was a fine dish; too rich, perhaps, for some of my esteemed acquaintances, whose digestive organs partake of the general laziness of their habits; but to us who had so long desired a healthful portion of bodily exercise in that quarter, it was the very marrow and life-blood of whatsoever is good and wholesome for famished carnivorous animals like ourselves. It was excellent, most excellent. It was better than our father's foaming ale. For while it loosed our tongues and warmed our hearts towards one another, it had the additional effect of Aaron's oil; it made our faces to shine with grease and gladness. But the remembrance of the palate pleasures of the next course, will not allow me to dwell longer upon this. The crowning gratification was yet in store for us.
While enjoying the soup, which I have just described, we believed the bumper of our pleasures to be sparkling to the brim; {237} and if our excellent old trapper had not been there, we never should have desired more. But how true is that philosophy which teaches, that to be capable of happiness, we must be conscious of wants! Our friend Kelly was in this a practical as well as theoretical Epicurean. "No giving up the beaver so," said he; "another bait and we will sleep."
Saying this, he seized the intestines of the buffalo, which had been properly cleaned for the purpose, turned them inside out, and as he proceeded stuffed them with strips of well salted and peppered tender loin. Our "boudies" thus made, were stuck upon sticks before the fire, and roasted till they were thoroughly cooked and brown. The sticks were then taken from their roasting position and stuck in position for eating; that is to say, each of us with as fine an appetite as ever blessed a New England boy at his grandsire's Thanksgiving dinner, seized a stick pit, stuck it in the earth near our couches, and sitting upon our haunches, ate our last course—the desert of a mountain host's entertainment. These wilderness sausages would have gratified the appetite of {238} those who had been deprived of meat a less time than we had been. The envelopes preserve the juices with which while cooking, the adhering fat, turned within, mingles and forms a gravy of the finest flavour. Such is a feast in the mountains.
Since leaving Fort William we had been occasionally crossing the trails of the Eutaw war parties, and had felt some solicitude for the safety of our little band. An overwhelming number of them might fall upon us at night and annihilate us at a blow. But we had thus far selected such encampments, and had such confidence in our rifles and in our dog, who never failed to give us notice of the least movement of a wolf or panther at night, that we had not stationed a guard since leaving that post.