Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/56



"Hallo, Jim. What's that you've killed?"

"Gun broke. Why, you must have overloaded it!"

"When'll you go hunting again? —'case I want to go too!"

"Poor Jim! Shoot grass, kill horse, break gun! Wat in do wor does him mean!"

"Never mind, Jim. Don't be skeered at these fellows. It takes you to play the devil and break things!"

Towards night, several buffalo bulls having made their appearance, our hunter, mounting a horse, started for the chase, and in a brief interval, returned laden with a supply of meat. Camp had already been struck, and preparations for the new item of fare were under speedy headway.

The beef proved miserably poor; but when cooked, indifferent as it was, I imagined it the best I had ever tasted. So keen was my relish, it seemed impossible to get enough. Each of us devoured an enormous quantity for supper,

—and not content with that, several forsook their beds during the night to renew the feast, —as though they had been actually starving for a month.

The greediness of the " greenhorns," was the prolific source of amusement to our voyageurs, who made the night-air resound with laughter at the avidity with which the unsophisticated ones "walked into the affections of the old bull," as they expressed it. " Keep on your belts till we get among cows," said they, "then let out a notch or two, and take a full meal."

It was equally amusing to me, and rather disgusting withal, to see the "old birds," as they called themselves, dispose of the only liver brought in camp. Instead of boiling, frying, or roasting it, they laid hold of it raw, and, sopping it mouthful by mouthful in gall, swallowed it with surprising gusto.

This strange proceeding was at first altogether incomprehensible, but, ere the reader shall have followed me through all my adventures in the wilds of the great West, he will find me to have obtained a full knowledge of its several merits.

The beef of the male buffalo at this season of the year, is poorer than at any other. From April till the first of June, it attains its prime, in point of excellence. In July and August, these animals prosecute their knight-errantic campaign, and, between running, fighting and gallantry, find little time to graze, finally emerging from the contested field, with hides well gored, and scarcely flesh enough upon their bones to make a decent shadow.

It is nowise marvellous, then, that our lavish appropriation of bullmeat at this time, when it is unprecedentedly tough, strong-tasted, and poor, should excite the mirth of our better-informed beholders.

The night was a cold one, and claimed for it Big Jim as second guard. When called for "relieve," with a borrowed gun, he commenced his rounds, —but the cold soon drove him to the camp-fire.

Here, weariness and the somnific effects of a generous heat, speedily found him stretched at full length towards the fire, snoring away at a sound rate, the subject of their combined influence.