Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/70

52 A train on the trail they were crossing was only safe in halting and allowing it to pass. The pressure from the rear was so great that the front could not halt. Some of the old plainsmen told of "a tenderfoot's" experience, who was going to have some "rare sport, and his pick of an entire bunch." He observed a large herd quietly grazing and saw by making a detour, up a dry ravine, where he would be hidden from view, he could get immediately in their front. He succeeded, and tying his mule behind him, concealed himself in the edge of some bushes upon the bank of the creek. He did not have long to wait, something in the rear frightened the herd and it began to come directly toward him. As soon as in reach, he began to fire and kill. It would break the ranks for an instant only, and he at once saw death impending, as there was not a tree large enough to climb. He had shot until his gun was hot, but all in vain. Just then his old mule tied in the bushes opened up his musical "honk, honk," such as only a thoroughly frightened mule can utter, and the whole herd opened right and left, and the man was saved.

Some have expressed a wonder that these noble animals, in such myriads, should so soon have disappeared. It is easily seen, in the fact of the improved firearms used by the Indians, and that they killed, for food, skins for clothing, and