第68章

We moved on, hoping within an hour to come in sight of the Indian village; but again disappointment awaited us.The trail disappeared, melting away upon a hard and stony plain.Raymond and I separating, rode from side to side, scrutinizing every yard of ground, until at length I discerned traces of the lodge-poles passing by the side of a ridge of rocks.We began again to follow them.

"What is that black spot out there on the prairie?""It looks like a dead buffalo," answered Raymond.

We rode out to it, and found it to be the huge carcass of a bull killed by the Indians as they had passed.Tangled hair and scraps of hide were scattered all around, for the wolves had been making merry over it, and had hollowed out the entire carcass.It was covered with myriads of large black crickets, and from its appearance must certainly have lain there for four or five days.The sight was a most disheartening one, and I observed to Raymond that the Indians might still be fifty or sixty miles before us.But he shook his head, and replied that they dared not go so far for fear of their enemies, the Snakes.

Soon after this we lost the trail again, and ascended a neighboring ridge, totally at a loss.Before us lay a plain perfectly flat, spreading on the right and left, without apparent limit, and bounded in front by a long broken line of hills, ten or twelve miles distant.

All was open and exposed to view, yet not a buffalo nor an Indian was visible.

"Do you see that?" said Raymond; "Now we had better turn round."But as Raymond's bourgeois thought otherwise, we descended the hill and began to cross the plain.We had come so far that I knew perfectly well neither Pauline's limbs nor my own could carry me back to Fort Laramie.I considered that the lines of expediency and inclination tallied exactly, and that the most prudent course was to keep forward.The ground immediately around us was thickly strewn with the skulls and bones of buffalo, for here a year or two before the Indians had made a "surround"; yet no living game presented itself.At length, however, an antelope sprang up and gazed at us.

We fired together, and by a singular fatality we both missed, although the animal stood, a fair mark, within eighty yards.This ill success might perhaps be charged to our own eagerness, for by this time we had no provision left except a little flour.We could discern several small lakes, or rather extensive pools of water, glistening in the distance.As we approached them, wolves andantelopes bounded away through the tall grass that grew in their vicinity, and flocks of large white plover flew screaming over their surface.Having failed of the antelope, Raymond tried his hand at the birds with the same ill success.The water also disappointed us.

Its muddy margin was so beaten up by the crowd of buffalo that our timorous animals were afraid to approach.So we turned away and moved toward the hills.The rank grass, where it was not trampled down by the buffalo, fairly swept our horses' necks.

Again we found the same execrable barren prairie offering no clew by which to guide our way.As we drew near the hills an opening appeared, through which the Indians must have gone if they had passed that way at all.Slowly we began to ascend it.I felt the most dreary forebodings of ill success, when on looking round I could discover neither dent of hoof, nor footprint, nor trace of lodge-pole, though the passage was encumbered by the ghastly skulls of buffalo.We heard thunder muttering; a storm was coming on.

As we gained the top of the gap, the prospect beyond began to disclose itself.First, we saw a long dark line of ragged clouds upon the horizon, while above them rose the peak of the Medicine-Bow, the vanguard of the Rocky Mountains; then little by little the plain came into view, a vast green uniformity, forlorn and tenantless, though Laramie Creek glistened in a waving line over its surface, without a bush or a tree upon its banks.As yet, the round projecting shoulder of a hill intercepted a part of the view.I rode in advance, when suddenly I could distinguish a few dark spots on the prairie, along the bank of the stream.

"Buffalo!" said I.Then a sudden hope flashed upon me, and eagerly and anxiously I looked again.

"Horses!" exclaimed Raymond, with a tremendous oath, lashing his mule forward as he spoke.More and more of the plain disclosed itself, and in rapid succession more and more horses appeared, scattered along the river bank, or feeding in bands over the prairie.Then, suddenly, standing in a circle by the stream, swarming with their savage inhabitants, we saw rising before us the tall lodges of the Ogallalla.Never did the heart of wanderer more gladden at the sight of home than did mine at the sight of those wild habitations!