Usually when a steer had been chased up hill and down vale for an hour, or until it was worn out, the Indians planned to round up the chase close to their tepee where a final shot with arrow or bullet put an end to the animal's misery. Then the squaws swarmed about the carcass with their skinning knives. The hide, always badly damaged by the spears and arrows, was removed in a workmanlike manner and carefully put away for tanning later on. The flesh of the steer was taken away and the feast began in a few minutes. Much of the meat was dried or "jerked."
CHAPTER XV
There's a Reason: This Is It!—Conclusion.
And now let me answer questions that have no doubt arisen in the minds of the readers who have waded through these chapters. "Why isn't this record presented in the regulation way—as a novel with a love story running through it;" or, "What is the moral?"
Let me ask such readers to follow me a little farther.
On March 22d, 1873, a description of a certain boy who left his Wisconsin home to buffet with the world on his own responsibility would have read as follows:
Age, 16 years, 6 mos. and 7 days. Weight 109 pounds; black hair, black eyes, smooth, pale face; well dressed; had, after paying for one handbag, a Derringer revolver (pop-gun) and a few knick-knacks, $85.00 in cash (a large sum for a youth of his age in those days).
Carried trip pass from Milwaukee to Council Bluffs, Iowa, via the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, personally given to him by Marvin Hughitt, then superintendent; also letter of introduction from E. J. Cuyler, to S. H. H. Clark, general manager of the Union Pacific Railroad at Omaha, recommending him as a worthy boy looking for a railroad office job, also requesting transportation favors.
This description takes no account of a deep-seated cough, occasional flashes of red in the pale face, and a fear expressed by friends that he was taking a desperate means of escaping the fate that had overtaken his dear mother but four months previously. It takes no account of his life up to the time of his departure on the long journey, not yet ended; though in the natural order of worldly things, the day is near at hand. I might add that he had been a "call boy" at a big railroad terminal, had advanced to a desk as a way-bill clerk, and when advised to seek a dry climate and there live out-of-doors, was earning a man's wage.
We will pass over briefly an encounter with one of the best men that ever lived—S. H. H. Clark—in his office at Omaha. When asked for a pass to Sherman, Wyoming, he said gruffly: