Page:California Digital Library (IA openingwestwithl00sabirich).pdf/139

 the wounds of the prone buffalo almost instantly froze.

The chase had proceeded for a mile—and on a sudden Chief Big White, from a little rise in a clear space, shouted high and waved his robe. It was the signal for the hunt to cease. The turmoil died, the frightened herd rushed on, and the horsemen dropped behind, to turn back. The squaws from the village already had been at work with their knives, cutting up the dead buffalo. They must work fast, on account of the cold. They carefully pulled out the arrows and laid them aside, so that it might be told to whom that buffalo belonged. The arrows of each hunter bore his mark, in paint on the shaft or the feathers.

Captain Clark rode in, panting and laughing, with Sha-ha-ka. His quiver was empty, his buffalo-horse frost-covered from eye-brows to tail. Sha-ha-ka treated him with great respect; and so did the other Indians.

"Dey say de Red Head one great chief. He ride an' shoot like Injun," explained Chaboneau, as the company from the fore assembled.

"Marse Will kill more buff'los dan all the rest ob dem put togedder," prated York. "Only he done run out ob arrers. Den he try to choke 'em wif his hands!"

Five buffalo were credited to the captain—his arrows were in them. Five more were credited to the soldiers, who had been hampered by their unsaddled horses and by the big overcoats. York claimed three of the five—but nobody could believe York. The in