Our adventure with White Wolf and his band obliged us, of course, to pass another night in Hays. We spent a most pleasant hour during the evening in the office of Dr. John Moore, an old resident of Plattsburg, N. Y., who assisted us materially in selecting medical stores, and who by his genial disposition endeared himself to our entire party, so that when we heard of his sad fate soon afterward, it seemed as if death had crouched by our own camp-fire. Should the Indians become troublesome, there was some talk at the fort, he now informed us, of organizing a company for operations against them, composed of buffalo hunters and scouts under the lead of regular officers, and in this case it was his purpose to accompany it in the capacity of a surgeon. As good guns were difficult to obtain there, and we had some extra weapons, one of our party loaned the doctor an improved Henry rifle and holster revolvers. Before we again heard of him, he had crossed that shadowy line which winds between the tombs and habitations of men, and his name was added to the drearily long list which bears for its heading—"Killed by Indians."
Commencing with those first entries after the Mayflower introduced our fathers to savage audience, and chiseling separately each name on a marble milestone, the white witnesses would girdle the earth.
Sunrise next morning saw us again moving northward, fully determined that no body of Indians, unless comprising the whole Cheyenne nation, should force us back again. We had met the red man on his native heath and familiarity had bred contempt. All were in excellent spirits and felt the braver, perhaps, because our late visitors had assured us that their tribe was on the war-path against the Pawnees, and meant only peace with the whites.
Our party left Hays the second time with quite an acquisition. On the eve of starting we had been approached by an artist, who begged permission to accompany us. We assented on the instant. An artist was, of all others, the thing we needed. How interesting it would be to have the thrilling incidents of the coming months sketched by our artist on the spot. "Daub" was a fine-looking fellow, with peaked hat, peaked beard, and peaked mustache; in short, was of the genuine artist cut, of the kind that are always sitting around on the stones in romantic places and getting married to heiresses.
During the day we saw many varieties of the cactus, some of them very beautiful. As we had no regular botanist with our expedition, Mr. Colon developed a taste in that direction, and secured and deposited several fine specimens which were carefully laid away in Shamus' wagon. It was not long before that excellent Irishman gave a prolonged howl, the cause of which he did not vouchsafe to tell us, but as we saw him cautiously rubbing his pantaloons we surmised that he had rolled or sat down upon a choice variety. The remainder of the plants he must, with still greater caution, have dropped overboard, as none could subsequently be found for boxing. If the truth must be said, I was not at all sorry for it. I had lent a hand in obtaining an unusually large cactus, but the loan was returned in such damaged condition that I lost all interest at once. The minute needles which nature has scattered over these plants will pierce a glove readily, and burrow in the flesh like trichina. The cactus may be set down as Dame Nature's pin-cushions.
Endless prairie-dog villages covered the country, and occasionally cayotes, about the size of setters, with brushy, fox-like tails, started out of ravines and ran off with a hang-dog sort of look, stopping occasionally to see if they were being pursued. Our guide ran one of these down with his horse and it was almost with sympathy that we watched the tired wolf, when he found running useless, dodging between the horse's legs, rendering the rider's aim false. It was finally dispatched by a greyhound. The latter deserved his name only from courtesy of species, as his color was inky black. He belonged to one of our hostlers, who got him from a Mexican train-master, and was a wonderful fighter. I saw him afterward in combats with not only the cayote, but the large timber wolf, and in every instance he came off the victor. On one occasion, I remember, he whipped the combined curs of a railroad tie camp, making every antagonist take to his heels. Very nearly as high as a table, with powerful chest and immense spring, the hound's movements were like flashes of light. He danced round and over his foe, his fangs clicking like a steel trap, first on one side and now on the other, and again, ere his enemy had closed its jaws on the shadow in front, he was at the rear. I have seen a gray wolf bleeding and helpless, and the hound untouched, after a half hour's combat.
On the north fork of Big Creek we frightened a dozen antelopes out of the brakes, and had a fine opportunity of witnessing a chase by the hound which alone was worth a journey to the plains to see. I remember having been very much interested, when a boy, in reading accounts of gazelle hunting in the Orient, where hawks and dogs are both used. The former pounce down from the air on the fleet-footed victim's head, compelling it to stop every few moments to shake its unwelcome passenger off, and the dogs are thus enabled to overtake it. This always seemed to me a cowardly sort of sport. The harmless victim of the chase, who can not touch the earth without its turning tell-tale to the keen-scented pursuer, should not be robbed of his only refuge, speed, or the pursuit becomes butchery.
The American antelope upon our plains is what the gazelle is upon those of Africa. Timid and fleet, it often detects and avoids danger to which its powerful neighbor, the buffalo, falls a victim. The group which we had frightened bounded away with an elasticity as if nature had furnished them hoofs and joints of rubber. There was no apparent effort in their motion, and we imagined larger powers in reserve than really existed. As the greyhound slowly gained upon them, we noticed this, and the Professor thereupon delivered what Sachem aptly styled a running discourse.
"Gentlemen, poetry of motion, perhaps by poetical license, gives exaggerated ideas of force. A smooth-running engine, though taxed to its utmost capacity, seems capable of accomplishing more, while its wheezing neighbor, groaning and straining as if on the verge of dissolution, has abundant powers in reserve. Some Hercules may lift a weight on which a straw more would seem to him large enough to sustain the traditional drowning man. The feat marks itself by a life-long backache, but, if he has performed it gracefully, he bears with it a reputation for a fabulous reserve of power, the exhibition seeming but the safety valve to his supposed giant forces struggling for expression."
Our learned friend seldom found us less attentive than then. All the wagons were stopped, and from every elevation upon them we looked out over the solitudes at the race going on before us. Pursuer and pursued were pitting against each other the same quality—speed. There was no lying in ambush or taking unawares. The fleetest-footed of game was flying before the swiftest of dogs. There could be no trailing, as these hounds run only by sight. What a straining of muscles! The low ridge barely lifting the animals against the horizon, their legs, from rapidity of motion, were invisible, and the bodies, for a short space, seemed floating in air. It was one short, black line, running rapidly into twelve gray ones, these latter resolving occasionally into as many balls of white cotton, when the puffy, rabbit-like tails of the antelopes were turned toward us. Two of the best mounted horsemen from our party had started with the chase, but seemed scarcely moving, so rapidly were they left behind.