The Way of a Man Part 23

"O come with me, and be my love, For thee the jungle's depths I'll rove.

I'll chase the antelope over the plain, And the tiger's cub I'll bind with a chain, And the wild gazelle with the silvery feet I'll give to thee for a playmate sweet."

"Poets," said I, "can very well sing about such things, but perhaps they could not practice all they sing. They always--"

"Hus.h.!.+" she whispered, drawing her horse gently down to a walk, and finally to a pause. "Look! Over there is one of the wild gazelles."

I followed the direction of her eyes and saw, peering curiously down at us from beyond the top of a little ridge, something like a hundred yards away, the head, horns, and neck of a p.r.o.ng-horn buck, standing facing us, and seeming not much thicker than a knife blade. Her keen eyes caught this first; my own, I fancy, being busy elsewhere. At once I slipped out of my saddle and freed the long, heavy rifle from its sling.

I heard her voice, hard now with eagerness. I caught a glance at her face, brown between her braids. She was a savage woman!

"Quick!" she whispered. "He'll run."

Eager as she, but deliberately, I raised the long barrel to line and touched the trigger. I heard the thud of the ball against the antelope's shoulder, and had no doubt that we should pick it up dead, for it disappeared, apparently end over end, at the moment of the shot.

Springing into the saddle, I raced with my companion to the top of the ridge. But, lo! there was the antelope two hundred yards away, and going as fast on three legs as our horses were on four.

"Ride!" she called. "Hurry!" And she spurred off at breakneck speed in pursuit, myself following, both of us now forgetting poesy, and quite become creatures of the chase.

The p.r.o.ng-horn, carrying lead as only the p.r.o.ng-horn can, kept ahead of us, ridge after ridge, farther and farther away, mile after mile, until our horses began to blow heavily, and our own faces were covered with perspiration. Still we raced on, neck and neck, she riding with hands low and weight slightly forward, workmanlike as a jockey. Now and again I heard her call out in eagerness.

We should perhaps have continued this chase until one or the other of the horses dropped, but now her horse picked up a pebble and went somewhat lame. She pulled up and told me to ride on alone. After a pause I slowly approached the top of the next ridge, and there, as I more than half suspected, I saw the antelope lying down, its head turned back.

Eager to finish the chase, I sprang down, carelessly neglecting to throw the bridle rein over my horse's head. Dropping flat, I rested on my elbow and fired carefully once more. This time the animal rolled over dead. I rose, throwing up my hat with a shout of victory, and I heard, shrilling to me across the distance, her own cry of exultation, as that of some native woman applauding a red hunter.

Alas for our joy of victory! Our success was our undoing. The very motion of my throwing up my hat, boyish as it was, gave fright to my horse, already startled by the shot. He flung up his head high, snorted, and was off, fast as he could go. I followed him on foot, rapidly as I could, but he would none of that, and was all for keeping away from me at a safe distance. This the girl saw, and she rode up now, springing down and offering me her horse.

"Stay here," I called to her as I mounted. "I'll be back directly"; and then with such speed as I could spur out of my new mount, I started again after the fugitive.

It was useless. Her horse, already lame and weary, and further handicapped by my weight, could not close with the free animal, and without a rope to aid me in the capture, it would have been almost impossible to have stopped him, even had I been able to come alongside.

I headed him time and again, and turned him, but it was to no purpose.

At last I suddenly realized that I had no idea how far I had gone or in what direction. I must now think of my companion. Never was more welcome sight than when I saw her on a distant ridge, waving her hat. I gave up the chase and returned to her, finding that in her fatigue she had sunk to the ground exhausted. She herself had run far away from the spot where I had left 'her.

"I was afraid," she panted. "I followed. Can't you catch him?"

"No," said I, "he's gone. He probably will go back to the trail."

"No," she said, "they run wild, sometimes. But now what shall we do?"

I looked at her in anxiety. I had read all my life of being afoot on the Plains. Here was the reality.

"But you are hurt," she cried. "Look, your wound is bleeding."

I had not known it, but my neck was wet with blood.

"Get up and ride," she said. "We must be going." But I held the stirrup for her instead, smiling.

"Mount!" I said, and so I put her up.

"Shall we go back to camp?" she asked in some perturbation, apparently forgetting that there was no camp, and that by this time the wagons would be far to the west. For reasons of my own I thought it better to go back to the dead antelope, and so I told her.

"It is over there," she said, pointing in the direction from which she thought she had come. I differed with her, remembering I had ridden with the sun in my face when following it, and remembering the shape of the hilltop near by. Finally my guess proved correct, and we found the dead animal, nearly a mile from where she had waited for me. I hurried with the butchering, cutting the loin well forward, and rolling it all tight in the hide, bound the meat behind the saddle.

"Now, shall we go back?" she asked. "If we rode opposite to the sun, we might strike the trail. These hills look all alike."

"The river runs east and west," I said, "so we might perhaps better strike to the southward."

"But I heard them say that the river bends far to the south not far from where we crossed. We might parallel the river if we went straight south."

"But does not the trail cut off the bend, and run straight west?" I rejoined. Neither of us knew that the course of the north fork ran thence far to the northwest and quite away from the trail to Laramie.

Evidently our council was of little avail. We started southwest as nearly as we could determine it, and I admit that grave anxiety had now settled upon me. In that monotonous country only the sun and the stars might guide one. Now, hard as it was to admit the thought, I realized that we would be most fortunate if we saw the wagons again that night. I had my watch with me, and with this I made the traveler's compa.s.s, using the dial and the noon mark to orient myself; but this was of small a.s.sistance, for we were not certain of the direction of the compa.s.s in which the trail lay. As a matter of fact, it is probable that we went rather west than southwest, and so paralleled both the trail and the river for more than a dozen miles that afternoon. The girl's face was very grave, and now and again she watched me walking or trotting alongside at such speed as I could muster. My clothing was covered with blood from my wound.

I looked always for some little rivulet which I knew must lead us to the Platte, but we struck no running water until late that evening, and then could not be sure that we had found an actual water course. There were some pools of water standing in a coulee, at whose head grew a clump of wild plum trees and other straggly growth. At least here was water and some sort of shelter. I dared go no farther.

Over in the west I saw rising a low, black bank of clouds. A film was coming across the sky. Any way I looked I could see no break, no landmark, no trend of the land which could offer any sort of guidance.

I wished myself all places in the world but there, and reproached myself bitterly that through my clumsiness I had brought the girl into such a situation.

"Miss Meriwether," I said to her finally, putting my hand on the pommel of her saddle as we halted, "it's no use. We might as well admit it; we are lost."

CHAPTER XXV

CLEAVING ONLY UNTO HER.

She made no great outcry. I saw her bend her face forward into her hands.

"What shall we do?" she asked at length.

"I do not know," said I to her soberly; "but since there is water here and a little shelter, it is my belief that we ought to stop here for the night."

She looked out across the gray monotony that surrounded us, toward the horizon now grown implacable and ominous. Her eyes were wide, and evidently she was pondering matters in her mind. At last she turned to me and held out her hands for me to a.s.sist her in dismounting.

"John Cowles, _of Virginia_," she said, "I am sorry we are lost."

I could make no answer, save to vow silently that if I lived she must be returned safely to her home, unhurt body and soul. I dared not ponder on conventions in a case so desperate as I knew ours yet might be. Silently I unsaddled the horse and hobbled it securely as I might with the bridle rein. Then I spread the saddle blanket for her to sit upon, and hurried about for Plains fuel. Water we drank from my hat, and were somewhat refreshed. Now we had food and water. We needed fire. But this, when I came to fumble in my pockets, seemed at first impossible, for I found not a match.

"I was afraid of that," she said, catching the meaning of my look. "What shall we do? We shall starve!"

"Not in the least," said I, stoutly. "We are good Indians enough to make a fire, I hope."

In my sheath was a heavy hunting knife; and now, searching about us on the side of the coulee bank, I found several flints, hard and white.

Then I tore out a bit of my coat lining and moistened it a trifle, and saturated it with powder from my flask, rubbed in until it all was dry.

This niter-soaked fabric I thought might serve as tinder for the spark.

So then I struck flint and steel, and got the strange spark, hidden in the cold stone ages and ages there on the Plains; and presently the spark was a little flame, and then a good fire, and so we were more comfortable.

We roasted meat now, flat on the coals, the best we might, and so we ate, with no salt to aid us. The girl became a trifle more cheerful, though still distant and quiet. If I rose to leave the fire for an instant, I saw her eyes following me all the time. I knew her fears, though she did not complain.

Man is the most needful of all the animals, albeit the most resourceful.

We needed shelter, and we had none. Night came on. The great gray wolves, haunters of the buffalo herds, roared their wild salute to us, savage enough to strike terror to any woman's soul. The girl edged close to me as the dark came down. We spoke but little. Our dangers had not yet made us other than conventional.