The Hunters' Feast Part 37

I have said until the morning. That is not strictly true, for before the morning that succeeded that _noche triste_ broke upon us, another cruel misfortune befel us, which still farther narrowed the circ.u.mstances that surrounded us. I have already stated that the herbage of the creek bottom was coa.r.s.e. It consisted of long gra.s.s, interspersed with briars and bunches of wild pea vines, with here and there a growth of scrubby wood. It was difficult to get through it, except by paths made by the buffalo and other animals. At this season of the year the thick growth of annuals was now a ma.s.s of withered stems, parched by the hot suns of autumn until they were as dry as tinder.

While engaged in our anxious vigil upon the plain above, we had not given a thought either to our camp or the large fire we had left there.

All at once our attention was directed to the latter by a loud crackling noise that sounded in our ears. We sprang to our feet, and looked into the valley behind us. The camp was on fire!

The brush was kindled all around it, and blazed to the height of several feet. We could see the blaze reflected from the white canvas both of waggon and tents, and in a few seconds these were licked into the hot flames, and disappeared from our view.

Of course we made no effort to save them. That would have been an idle and foolish attempt. We could not have approached the spot, without the almost certain danger of death. Already while we gazed, the fire spread over the whole creek bottom, and pa.s.sed rapidly both up and down the banks of the stream.

For ourselves there was no danger. We were up on the open prairie covered only with short gra.s.s. Had this caught also, we knew how to save ourselves; but the upper level, separated by a steep bluff, was not reached by the conflagration that raged so fiercely below.

We stood watching the flames for a long while, until daylight broke.

The bottom, near where we were, had ceased to burn, and now lay beneath us, smoking, smouldering, and black. We descended, and picked our steps to where our camp had stood. The tents were like black cerements. The iron work of the waggon alone remained, our extra clothing and provisions were all consumed. Even the produce of our yesterday's hunt lay among the ashes a charred and ruined ma.s.s!

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

A SUPPER OF WOLF-MUTTON.

Our condition was now lamentable indeed. We even hungered for our breakfast, and had nothing to eat. The fire had consumed everything. A party went to look for the remains of the buffalo-bull killed by the guides, but returned without a morsel of meat. The wolves had cleaned the carca.s.s to a skeleton. The marrow bones, however, still remained, and these were brought in--afterwards, the same parts of the four cows; and we made our breakfast on marrow--eating it raw--not but that we had fire enough, but it is less palatable when cooked.

What was next to be done? We held a consultation, and of course came to the resolve to strike for the nearest settlement--that was the frontier town of Independence on the Missouri River. It was nearly three hundred miles off, and we calculated in reaching it in about twenty days. We only reckoned the miles we should have to traverse. We allowed nothing for the numerous delays, caused by marshes and the fording of flooded streams. It afterwards proved that our calculation was incorrect. It was nearly twice twenty days before we arrived at Independence.

We never thought of following the trail of the Indians to recover our horses. We knew they were gone far beyond pursuit, but even could we have come up with them, it would only have been to imperil our lives in an unequal strife. We gave up our horses as lost, and only deliberated on how we were to undertake the journey afoot.

Here a serious question arose. Should we at once turn our faces to the settlement, how were we to subsist on the way? By heading for Independence we should at once get clear of the buffalo-range, and what other game was to be depended on? A stray deer, rabbit, or prairie grouse might suffice to sustain a single traveller for a long time, but there were ten of us. How was this number to be fed on the way? Even with our horses to carry us in pursuit of game, we had not been able on our outward journey to procure enough for all. How much less our opportunity now that we were afoot!

To head directly homeward therefore was not to be thought of. We should a.s.suredly perish by the way.

After much discussion it was agreed that we should remain for some days within the buffalo-range, until we had succeeded in obtaining a supply of meat, and then each carrying his share we should begin our journey homeward. In fact, this was not a disputed point. All knew there remained no other way of saving our lives. The only difference of opinion was as to the direction we should ramble in search of the buffalo; for although we knew that we were on the outskirts of a great herd, we were not certain as to its whereabouts, and by taking a false direction we might get out of its range altogether.

It so happened, however, that fortune lately so adverse, now took a turn in our favour, and the great buffalo drove was found without much trouble on our part. Indeed almost without any exertion, farther than that of loading and firing our guns, we came into possession of beef enough to have victualled an army. We had, moreover, the excitement of a grand hunt, although we no longer hunted for the sport of the thing.

During that day we scattered in various directions over the prairie, agreeing to meet again at night. The object of our thus separating was to enable us to cover a greater extent of ground, and afford a better chance of game. To our mutual chagrin we met at the appointed rendezvous all of us empty-handed. The only game brought in was a couple of marmots (prairie dogs), that would not have been sufficient for the supper of a cat. They were not enough to give each of the party a taste, so we were compelled to go without supper. Having had but a meagre breakfast and no dinner, it will not be wondered at that we were by this time as hungry as wolves; and we began to dread that death by starvation was nearer than we thought of. Buffaloes--several small gangs of them--had been seen during the day, but so shy that none of them could be approached. Another day's failure would place our lives in a perilous situation indeed; and as these thoughts pa.s.sed through our minds, we gazed on each other with looks that betokened apprehension and alarm. The bright blaze of the camp-fire--for the cold had compelled us to kindle one--no longer lit up a round of joyful faces. It shone upon checks haggard with hunger and pallid with fear. There was no story for the delighted listener--no adventure to be related. We were no longer the historians, but the real actors in a drama--a drama whose _denouement_ might be a fearful one.

As we sat gazing at each other, in hopes of giving or receiving some morsel of comfort and encouragement, we noticed old Ike silently glide from his place by the fire, and after a whisper to us to remain silent, crawl off on his hands and knees. He had seen something doubtless, and hence his singular conduct. In a few minutes his prostrate form was lost in the darkness, and for some time we saw or heard no more of him.

At length we were startled by the whip-like crack of the guide's rifle, and fancying it might be Indians, each sprang up in some alarm and seized his gun. We were soon rea.s.sured, however, by seeing the upright form of the trapper as he walked deliberately back towards the camp-fire, and the blaze revealed to us a large whitish object dangling by his side and partly dragging along the ground.

"Hurrah!" cried one, "Ike has killed game."

"A deer--an antelope," suggested several.

"No-o," drawled Redwood. "'Taint eyther, but I guess we won't quarrel with the meat. I could eat a raw jacka.s.s jest about now."

Ike came up at this moment, and we saw that his game was no other than a prairie-wolf. Better that than hunger, thought all of us; and in a brace of seconds the wolf was suspended over the fire, and roasting in the hide.

We were now more cheerful, and the antic.i.p.ation of such an odd viand for supper, drew jokes from several of the party. To the trappers such a dish was nothing new, although they were the only persons of the party who had partaken of it. But there was not one fastidious palate present, and when the "wolf-mutton" was broiled, each cleaned his joint or his rib with as much _gout_ as if he had been picking the bones of a pheasant.

Before the supper was ended the wolf-killer made a second _coup_, killing another wolf precisely as he had done the former; and we had the gratification of knowing that our breakfast was now provided for. These creatures, that all along our journey had received nothing from us but anathemas, were now likely to come in for a share of our blessings, and we could not help feeling a species of grat.i.tude towards them, although at the same time we thus killed and ate them.

The supper of roast wolf produced an agreeable change in our feelings, and we even listened with interest to our guides, who, appropriate to the occasion, related some curious incidents of the many narrow escapes they had had from starvation.

One in particular fixed our attention, as it afforded an ill.u.s.tration of trapper life under peculiar circ.u.mstances.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

HARE HUNTING AND CRICKET DRIVING.

The two trappers, in company with two others of the same calling, were on a trapping expedition to one of the tributaries of the Great Bear River, west of the Rocky Mountains, when they were attacked by a band of hostile Utahs, and robbed not only of the produce of their hunt, but their horses and pack-mules were taken from them, and even their arms and ammunition. The Indians could have taken their lives as well, but from the interference of one of the chiefs, who knew old Ike, they were allowed to go free, although in the midst of the desert region where they were, that was no great favour. They were as likely as not to perish from hunger before they could reach any settlement--as at that time there was none nearer than Fort Hall upon the Snake River, a distance of full three hundred miles. Our four trappers, however, were not the men to yield themselves up to despair, even in the midst of a desert; and they at once set about making the most of their circ.u.mstances.

There were deer upon the stream where they had been trapping, and bear also, as well as other game, but what did that signify now that they had no arms? Of course the deer or antelopes sprang out of the shrubbery or scoured across the plain only to tantalise them.

Near where they had been left by the Indians was a "sage prairie," that is, a plain covered with a growth of the _artemisia_ plant--the leaves and berries of which--bitter as they are--form the food of a species of hare, known among the trappers as the "sage rabbit." This creature is as swift as most of its tribe, but although our trappers had neither dog nor gun, they found a way of capturing the sage rabbits. Not by snaring neither, for they were even without materials to make snares out of.

Their mode of securing the game was as follows.

They had the patience to construct a circular fence, by wattling the sage plants together, and then leaving one side open, they made a "surround" upon the plain, beating the bushes as they went, until a number of rabbits were driven within the inclosure. The remaining part of the fence was then completed, and the rabbit hunters going inside chased the game about until they had caught all that were inside.

Although the fence was but about three feet in height, the rabbits never attempted to leap over, but rushed head foremost against the wattles, and were either caught or knocked over with sticks.

This piece of ingenuity was not original with the trappers, as Ike and Redwood admitted. It is the mode of rabbit-hunting practised by some tribes of western Indians, as the poor Shoshonees and miserable "diggers," whose whole lives are spent in a constant struggle to procure food enough to sustain them. These Indians capture the small animals that inhabit their barren country by ways that more resemble the instinct of beasts of prey than any reasoning process. In fact there are bands of these Indians who can hardly be said to have yet reached the hunter state. Some of them carry as their sole armour a long stick with a hooked end, the object of which is to drag the _agama_ and the lizard out of its cave or cleft among the rocks; and this species of game is transferred from the end of the stick to the stomach of the captor with the same despatch as a hungry mastiff would devour a mouse.

Impounding the sage hare is one of the master strokes of their hunter-craft, and forms a source of employment to them for a considerable portion of the year.

Our four trappers, then, remembering the Indian mode of capturing these creatures put it in execution to some advantage, and were soon able to satisfy their hunger. After two or three days spent in this pursuit they had caught more than twenty hares, but the stock ran out, and no more could be found in that neighbourhood.

Of course only a few were required for present use, and the rest were dried over a sage fire until they were in a condition to keep for some days.

Packing them on their backs, the trappers set out, heading for the Snake River. Before they could reach Fort Hall their rabbit meat was exhausted, and they were as badly off as before. The country in which they now found themselves was if possible more of a desert than that they had just quitted. Even rabbits could not dwell in it, or the few that were started could not be caught. The _artemisia_ was not in sufficient plenty to make an inclosure with, and it would have been hopeless to have attempted such a thing; as they might have spent days without trapping a single hare. Now and again they were tantalised by seeing the great sage c.o.c.k, or, as naturalists call it, "c.o.c.k of the plains" (_Tetrao urophasia.n.u.s_), but they could only hear the loud "burr" of its wings, and watch it sail off to some distant point of the desert plain. This bird is the largest of the grouse kind, though it is neither a bird of handsome plumage, nor yet is it delicate in its flesh.

On the contrary, the flesh, from the nature of its food, which is the berry of the wild wormwood, is both unsavoury and bitter. It would not have deterred the appet.i.tes of our four trappers, could they have laid their hands upon the bird, but without guns such a thing was out of the question. For several days they sustained themselves on roots and berries. Fortunately it was the season when these are ripe, and they found here and there the prairie turnip (_Psoralea esculenta_), and in a marsh which they had to cross they obtained a quant.i.ty of the celebrated Kamas roots.

All these supplies, however, did not prove sufficient. They had still four or five days' farther journey, and were beginning to fear they would not get through it, for the country to be pa.s.sed was a perfect barren waste. At this crisis, however, a new source of subsistence appeared to them, and in sufficient plenty to enable them to continue their journey without fear of want. As if by magic, the plain upon which they were travelling all at once become covered with large crawling insects of a dark brown colour. These were the insects known among the trappers as "prairie crickets," but from the description given of them by the trappers the hunter-naturalist p.r.o.nounced them to be "locusts." They were of that species known in America as the "seventeen years' locust" (_Cicada septemdecem_), so called because there is a popular belief that they only appear in great swarms every seventeen years. It is probable, however, that this periodical appearance is an error, and that their coming at longer or shorter intervals depends upon the heat of the climate, and many other circ.u.mstances.

They have been known to arrive in a great city, coming not from afar, but out of the ground from between the bricks of the pavement and out of crevices in the walls, suddenly covering the streets with their mult.i.tudes. But this species does not destroy vegetation, as is the case with others of the locust tribe. They themselves form the favourite food of many birds, as well as quadrupeds. Hogs eagerly feed upon and destroy vast numbers of them; and even the squirrels devour them with as great a relish as they do nuts. These facts were furnished by the hunter-naturalist, but our trappers had an equally interesting tale to tell.

As soon as they set eyes upon the locusts and saw that they were crawling thickly upon the plain, they felt that they were safe. They knew that these insects were a staple article of food among the same tribes of Indians--who hunt the sage hare. They knew, moreover, their mode of capturing them, and they at once set about making a large collection.

This was done by hollowing out a circular pit in the sandy earth, and then the four separating some distance from each other, drove the crickets towards a common centre--the pit. After some manoeuvring, a large quant.i.ty was brought together, and these being pressed upon all sides, crawled up to the edge of the pit, and were precipitated into its bottom. Of course the hole had been made deep enough to prevent them getting out until they were secured by the hunters.

At each drive nearly half a bushel was obtained, and then a fresh pit was made in another part of the plain, and more driven in, until our four trappers had as many as they wanted.

The crickets were next killed, and slightly parched upon hot stones, until they were dry enough to keep and carry. The Indians usually pound them, and mixing them with the seeds of a species of gramma gra.s.s, which grows abundantly in that country, form them into a sort of bread, known among the trappers as "cricket-cake." These seeds, however, our trappers could not procure, so they were compelled to eat the parched crickets "pure and unmixed;" but this, in the condition in which they then were, was found to be no hards.h.i.+p.

In fine, having made a bundle for each, they once more took the route, and after many hards.h.i.+ps, and suffering much from thirst, they reached the remote settlement of Fort Hall, where, being known, they were of course relieved, and fitted out for a fresh trapping expedition.

Ike and Redwood both declared that they afterwards had their revenge upon the Utahs, for the scurvy treatment they had suffered, but what was the precise character of that revenge they declined stating. Both loudly swore that the p.a.w.nees had better look out for the future, for they were not the men to be "set afoot on the parairy for nuthin."

After listening to the relations of our guides, a night-guard was appointed, and the rest of us, huddling around the camp-fire, were soon as sound asleep as though we were reposing under damask curtains, on beds of down.