Page:The Prairie Flower; Or, Adventures In the Far West.djvu/60

 me like

THE PRAIRIE FLOWER; OR

delighted child at the same time uttering Carious phrases in his peculiar style, which, in spi f e of all that had happened, did not fail to amuse and sometimes make me laugh aloud.

I found the trappers surly and grumbling at what they considered their ill-luck be ing for the most part in the loss of a few pounds of powder, and their mules all of which had escaped, as well as our horses.

"Augh!" grunted Black' George as I came up. " Glad to see you, boy. Thought vou'd gone under. It was a screecher of a night, wasn't it? Lost heaps of powder,

and all the critters gone to the.

Augh!"

My powder had fortunately been so packed that nearly all was safe; and as I had a great store on hand, I gave each of the mountaineers a pound, which served to put them in a better humor.

We now separated and set off in differ ent directions to hunt our animals, with the understanding that this should be our ren dezvous. We had a wearisome time of it, and it was late in the day before we all got together again. All, however, had been recovered; and mounting, we set forward once more rather briskly, and encamped some ten miles distant.

CHAPTER XI.

OUR COURSE ALONG THE PLATTE KILLING

AND DRESSING A BUFFALO THEIR PATHS

THE PKAJRIE-DOG THEIR TOWNS, AP PEARANCE, HABITS, FOOD, ETC. THE SOL ITARY TOWER- CHIMNEY BOCK SCOTT'S

BLUFFS ORIGIN OF VHE NAME FORT

LARAMIE ARRIVAL AT ITS APPEARANCE,

INMATES, ETC. CURIOSITY.

THE next morning we set forward again, and keeping a northwesterly course, mostly over a rolling prairie, encamped on the second night on the banks of the Nebras ka or Platte river. This river is very shal low, and flows over a sandy bed. We found the bottom at this point some three or four miles wide, devoid of a tree, and covered with excellent grass, besprinkled with a salinous substance, which caused our animals to devour it greedily.

Setting our faces westward, ve now fol

lowed the course of the Platte for sevei^l days, without a single incident occurring worth being recorded. The Platte bot toms we found to vary from two to four miles in breadth, and in some places ouj animals fared slimly. On the fourth da} Fiery Ned shot a fat buffalo, which was the first I had ever seen close at hand. This animal dies very hard, even when mortally wounded; and an individual un- acquainted with its nature or, as th ' mountaineers would term him, a " greeu horn" though never so good a marks- I man, would assuredly fail, using the hunt- ' ers' phrase, " to throw him in his tracks." One would suppose that a shot about the head or central part of the body would I prove fatal but nothing is more errone ous. To kill a bull, the ball must either ] divide his spine, or enter his body behind j the shoulder, a few inches ab<^e the bris- ] ket this being the only point through which his heart and lungs are accessible, i And even here, the vital part of all vitality, with a ball directly through his heart, I was informed by one of the hunters that he had known an old bull run half a mile before falling.

The buffalo killed was a fat cow; and j turning her upon her back, the trappers proceeded to dress her in the real moun tain style. Parting tne skin from head to tail with a sharp knife, directly across the belly, they peeled down the hide on eithei side, and then taking from her the " hump rib," "tenderloin," "fleece," "tongue," and "boudins," they left the remainder, with the exception of the skin, which was thrown across one of the mules, to the vigilant care of the wolves. The "bou- din," a portion of the entrails, is consider ed by the mountaineers the titbit of all. Slightly browned over a fire, it is swallowed, yard after yard, without being separated, and, I may add, without resulting in the least inconvenience to the gormand.

Through this section of country I ob served innumerable buffalo paths, running from the bluffs to the river, and crossing each other in every direction. These paths present a striking appearance to one unused to the sight, being more than a foot in width, some three or four inches in depth, and as smooth and even as if cut artificially.

But to Huntly and myself- t