No cayote serenade occurred that night, the musicians evidently being busy drawing sweetness from the cords of the slain. A solemn hush lay over the land, for the bisons are a quiet race, and, except in novels, never take to roaring any more than they do to ten-mile charges.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CAYOTES' STRYCHNINE FEAST—CAPTURING A TIMBER WOLF—A FEW CORDS OF VICTIMS—WHAT THE LAW CONSIDERS "INDIAN TAN"—"FINISHING" THE NEW YORK MARKET—A NEW YORK FARMER'S OPINION OF OUR GRAY WOLF—WESTWARD AGAIN—EPISODES IN OUR JOURNEY—THE WILD HUNTRESS OF THE PLAINS—WAS OUR GUIDE A MURDERER?—THE READER JOINS US IN A BUFFALO CHASE—THE DYING AGONIES.
The next day's life began, as did the previous one, before sunrise, and while breakfast was cooking, we followed the Mexicans down to examine their baits. The ground around the carcasses was flecked with forms which, in the early light, looked like sleeping sheep. A half-dozen or more wolves, which were still feeding, scampered away at our approach. From the number of animals lying around, we at first supposed most of them simply gorged, but the rapid, satisfied jabbering of the Mexicans quickly convinced us that the strychnine had been doing its work more effectually than we had given it credit for. Twenty-three dead wolves were found, and the even two dozen was made up by a large specimen of the gray variety—or timber-wolf, as it is called in contradistinction from the cayote—who was exceedingly sick, and went rolling about in vain efforts to get out of the way.
Before proceeding to skin the dead wolves, the Mexicans captured this old fellow and haltered him, by carbine straps, to the horns of one of the buffalo carcasses, near which he sat on his haunches, with eyes yellow from rage and fright. Just to stir him up, we tossed him a piece of bone; he caught it between his long fangs with a click that made our nerves twitch. Man never appreciates the wonderful command that God gave him over the other animals until away from his fellows, and surrounded by the wild beasts of the solitudes, in all their native fierceness. Here were a few mortals of us encompassed by wolves, in sufficient numbers and power to annihilate our party, and yet one solitary man walking toward them would have put the whole brute multitude to flight.
Although we wondered, at the time, that so many wolves were gathered from a single baiting, we soon learned that this success was by no means unusual. At Grinnel Station, where a corporal's guard was stationed, we afterward saw over forty dead wolves, and most of them of the gray variety, stacked up, like cord-wood, as the result of one night's poisoning by the soldiers.
The remainder of this day was devoted to stalking, and resulted in our obtaining a sufficiency of robes and meat to justify us in sending the two Mexican wagons back with them to Hays. Our two captives, the buffalo calf and wolf, went also. The history of that shipment merits brief chronicling.
The robes went to St. Louis, to a man who advertised a patent way of curing such skins, "warranted as good as Indian tan." Some months afterward they were returned to Topeka, duly finished, and I find in the official note-book the following entry. "Robes received to-day. Resolution, by the company, to learn what the law would consider 'Indian tan,' in a suit for damages." They had been shaved so thin that the roots of the hair stuck out on the inside, while the patent liquid in which they had been soaked gave forth an odor which would have been wonderful for its permanency, if it had not been still more wonderful for its offensiveness.