CHAPTER XXV.
ON THE PRAIRIE.
We hastened up the river for five days, during which time we crossed a number of small streams which fell into it. Then we reached the eastern spurs of the Medicine Mountains, in which the river rises and pours over the rocks in the shape of a large torrent. Here we crossed it, and following the base of these hills in the plain, we reached on the second evening a small stream, which flows for at least a hundred miles due east through this broad plain, which the Indians called Lamarie, to the Black Mountains bordering the plain, and, as Owl told us, winds through the latter till it falls into the Northern Platte to the east of Fort Lamarie. These mountains, which in height and shape exactly resemble the range from which the Bighorn rises, are to the north of that snow peak. We marched along the stream to the eastward to the Black Mountains, and then turned up an arm of it coming from the south until it was lost in the plain. We marched from here for a whole day without water, and were obliged to pass the night, too, without it or fire, as the desolate plain over which we rode showed us not a single tree. Toward evening the next day we reached a lake, which was about three miles in circumference, but its waters were slightly impregnated with salt: following its banks, however, we arrived on its western side at some clear streams of fresh water. Here we refreshed ourselves and camped, though it was early in the afternoon, and amused ourselves with shooting geese and swans. On the next evening we came to a similar lake, with fresh-water streams on its western side, so that we again had a splendid camp, and took advantage of the opportunity to bathe in the lake.
During the next day our road again ran over a desolate, melancholy plain, but toward evening we saw a low wood in the distance, and reached another arm of the river which runs through the Black Mountains to Fort Lamarie. Here we had everything we could desire, a protected camp in the wood, and a splendid trout stream, in which we refreshed ourselves and our horses. We shot several fat buffaloes, and a few black-tailed stags. The wood above us sufficed to put us in good spirits, for we were very tired of the monotonous, desolate plains over which we had been marching for a long time. Before sunset our horses neighed, and we heard them answered from, outside the wood. All at once there was a thundering burst through the low bushes, and the leader of a troop of wild horses fell in terror immediately in front of our fire, and the animals behind him one over the other, after which they got up again in the utmost fear and confusion and dashed out of the wood. The stallion was a splendid iron-grey, very powerfully built and finely shaped, and we all regretted that we were unable to take him home.
The next morning we left the river and went south, and for the whole day without finding water. The sun sank behind the hills, and nowhere was there a tree or a sign of water; the grass, too, was bad, but our cattle were very weary, and we too longed for rest. We made a poor fire of bois de vache and small bushes, large enough to cook our supper, then we put up our tents and secured our traps under the tarpaulin on a bed of stones, for the sky was overcast and led to expectation of rain. At nightfall it began to blow and rain, and went on the whole night till daybreak, when the clouds gathered together again, and hanging on the base of the mountains displayed the snow peaks brilliantly illumined by the sun. We quickly started, and marched from this disagreeable spot, looking for pleasanter signs ahead. At length, toward noon, wood rose again from the barren surface. We drove our animals into a quicker pace, and in a few hours were resting again on a river fringed by trees, upon glorious grass, which our starving cattle eagerly devoured. It was still very early, and we all felt inclined to go hunting, as the rain had refreshed the country, and the verdure of the forest and the meadow does the eyesight good. A few preferred fishing in the neighbouring stream; several went up the river to hunt, while I went down it, accompanied by Trusty only. I had gone about a couple of miles along the skirt of the wood when I saw something moving on the prairie behind some very low bushes. I crept cautiously up to the last bush, and before me stood, at about the distance of a hundred and twenty yards, a herd of some forty large and old giant stags. The beautiful animals—the pride of the animal world—stood in a long line before me, with their faces turned to me, and raised their powerful antlers like a forest of horns. It was a sight whose beauty only a sportsman can estimate. I lay for some minutes lost in contemplation, but when I raised my knee and rifle the whole herd turned and galloped past me. I had long had my eye on the largest stag, for its antlers rose far above the others with their broad lines. I aimed behind the shoulder and fired, heard the bullet distinctly go home, and saw, that though it was bleeding profusely, it kept up with the others. The next largest stag, being just behind this one, I fired the second barrel at it, heard the thud of the bullet again, and saw that it was mortally wounded; but it too remained in line, and I watched the stags till they disappeared a long way off in a hollow.
I loaded, and on reaching the spot where the stags were hit, Trusty at once put his nose to the blood trail and stopped, looking up at me. I made him a sign that it was all right, and when he had gone a little distance he went off slightly to the right, took up the trail of the second stag, and then again pointed with his nose to the ground, while looking at me inquiringly. I again urged him on, and he went first to one trail, then to the other, till I was able to look down into the valley, where I saw the two stags lying dead, hardly ten yards apart. I hastened up to them, and counted, on the antlers of the largest, eight-and-thirty tines, and on the smaller one six-and-twenty; the length of the two antlers was between five and six feet, and their weight between thirty and forty pounds. The antlers of this stag only differ from those of our stag through their size and the greater number of tines: the great difference between them is in the weight, as the giant stag is often double the size of ours. Both animals, it seemed, had died nearly at the same moment, for they lay side by side with their heads stretched out, as they had been running. After looking at them for awhile in delight, I broke them up, gave Trusty his share, cut out a couple of grinders as a recollection, and then went back to camp, when my comrades were equally pleased at the result of my sport. The other hunters had also been fortunate, and had killed a fat buffalo, while the anglers had pulled a number of large fish out of the river. Owl went with Antonio and Königstein to my stags, in order to fetch their skins and meat, and I requested them to bring me the antlers of the largest one, as I wished, were it possible, to carry them home. Though we liked the place so much, we left it again next morning, abundantly supplied with the best game, and Jack trotted after us with the enormous antlers on the top of his packages.
The country here became again intersected by low ranges of hills, which crossed the plain from east to west; their heights were long and barren, but the large valleys between them ornamented with small prairies and woods, in the latter of which we frequently found springs. The variety was a relief to our eyes, and offered us many a fine prospect, with the mountains approaching each other. Isolated masses of rock again rose out of these valleys, and before us in the far South were visible loftier ranges, some of them branching off from the Medicine Mountains, others from the Black Mountains. The colouring of these landscapes in the west of the continent is much warmer and more hazy than in the Eastern States, or in the countries of Old Europe. The distances, although transparent and extraordinarily distinct, float in a delicate reddish-blue tinge, in front of which the deep dark shadows and flashing lights produced by the glowing sun stand out the more powerfully. The shadows which the clouds throw on the landscape are also, like the latter, dyed with carmine and cobalt, and not, as in England, black and white, the mere sight of which produces a shudder. The streams reflect on their surface the dark ultramarine of the heavens, and the rich green of the woods and prairies loses through its countless tints and rich flora its wearisome monotony.
With every hour the beauty of the country increased, and the animal world became more animated. Countless wild horses of the most varying colours flew at our approach over the green hills, large herds of dark-haired buffalo galloped awkwardly over the wide stretches of grass, and from the stony heights the light-footed antelopes gazed down curiously at us. Up hill, down hill, we jolted in the saddles of our ambling steeds, when, on a calm warm evening toward sunset, we rode down from a grassy knoll to a stream, which was closely overhung with alder bushes, and separated the base of the hill from a wide prairie, round which it wound with numerous meanderings. Tiger was riding about forty yards ahead, and had just disappeared with his piebald in a patch of scrub, when he dashed out of the other side of it with a loud cry and an enormous grizzly bear after him. We galloped through the stream after him, while his rapid horse bounded over the grass toward us, and gained a slight advance on the grizzly. All our rifles were fired at the monster, and turning away from Tiger it came toward us with long leaps, and pursued John with an awful roar; once again our rifles cracked behind it, but the bullets did not check its clumsy but yet rapid course. John turned his mare again toward us, and had hardly joined our ranks when we fired a salvo from our revolvers at the maddened bear, and galloping after it, kept up our fire. Königstein, on the cream-colour, was the nearest to it on the left, and gave the bear a shot at short range, when the latter turned on him and smashed his broad, wooden stirrup into a thousand chips between its savage teeth. Königstein, however, had pulled his foot out and flew with his horse to our side. Again we sent a hailstorm of bullets into the broad back of the infuriated animal, upon which it sank on its hind-quarters, as a bullet had smashed its spine. Its fury and the roars it uttered were fearful, and turning in a circle on its monstrous forepaws it covered a large space around it with its blood, which streamed from its shaggy carcass.
I shouted to my friends not to fire, as I saw Tiger had dismounted and was hastily loading his rifle, and I wished to grant him the pleasure of killing the bear. He fired his bullet into its head, and then cut off its claws with great satisfaction. We took the paws, tongue, and liver of the huge animal, while Tiger rode back to the stream, and thence shouted to us to join him. We rode up, and found in the water a two-year old, very handsome chestnut horse, which the bear had captured on the prairie, and, as the trampled grass showed us, had dragged to the stream, in order to enjoy its meal without being disturbed. I took the tusks of the slain animal, and with the new matter for conversation which this fight gave us, we shortened the road to our camp, which lay in an exquisite hollow on the south side of lofty crags, under which a clear torrent rolled over loose stones that glistened like gold. They contained a substance which really resembled this metal, so that they shone through the water hurrying over them like lumps of pure gold. Some stately palms, maples, and oaks overshadowed our camp, and served as a cool retreat for the countless songsters that saluted us with their evening hymn.
It is incomprehensible why the belief prevails throughout Europe that American birds are very brilliantly plumaged, but cannot sing, while most certainly there are sweeter songsters and more varieties of them on this continent than in Europe. A single bird is wanting, the nightingale, but it is compensated a thousandfold by the mocking bird. All other classes of birds are represented, though with different and finer plumage. The belief may arise from the fact that emigrants from Europe land in the large eastern cities, and in their walks in their vicinity see no birds, from the circumstance that boys there of ten years old run about with guns and kill every bird that shows itself: and then again, these persons only seek the shade of the trees and bushes during the heat of the day, when all birds silently hide themselves from the burning sun. If they went out in the morning, however, when nature is awakening, they would hear quite as good singers as in their old home.