''Bring Me His Ears'' by Clarence E. Mulford (story reading txt) 📖

"Yes, I did; but I'll never do it again!"

"Thought so. Now you lay low out hyar till I tells th' others. Be back soon," and before any reply could be made the corporal had become swallowed up in the night. The weather was not warm, yet Doctor Whiting sweat copiously, and after he had been relieved and sent back to the encampment he had great trouble in falling asleep.

Hank Marshall slipped up behind Jim Ogden as that person came in, and imitated the significant twang. Jim jumped a foot in the air and then bent over, convulsed with silent laughter.

"Dang ye, Hank; I don't know how ye do it!" he exclaimed. "I never heard th' like. Thar'll be one bunch o' greenhorns lyin' flat, an' all eyes an' ears from now on. I war weak from laughin' afore I went out to stumble over him. When th' guard war changed they couldn't hardly find him, he war spread out so flat. Jest like a new born buffaler calf that its maw has cached in a bunch o' grass. Bet ye could fool an Injun with that thar twang."

"I've did it," said Hank, chuckling.

The next morning Dr. Whiting was quite a hero, and as the caravan left the creek he rode by the side of Patience, talking until he had thoroughly exhausted the subject. After he had left her to go helter-skeltering over the prairie a mile ahead in eager and hopeful search of buffalo, Hank Marshall rode up to the wagon and took his place.

He listened to Patience's excited comment about the doctor's narrow escape, and then, picking up the reins, twanged sharply, winked at her, and rode off to the flanking line. She stared after him for a moment and then stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth. When she had command over herself again she turned indignantly toward her chuckling uncle.

"Just the same, it was a mean trick!" she declared.

"Giddap," said Uncle Joe, and chuckled all the more.

"But it was!"

"It learned 'em all a lesson," he replied. "May save their fool lives, and ours, too. Giddap!"

It was a long haul to Turkey Creek, but the caravan made it and was corralled before dark. Buffalo signs had been seen shortly before the creek was reached, and when old Indian signs were found near the camp site, the day's excitement took on new life. A broken lodge-pole, some odds and ends of tanned hides and a discarded moccasin, somehow overlooked by the Indians' dogs, were discovered near the blackened spots on the prairie where camp-fires had burned. The night passed quietly, every sentry flat against the earth and trying to rob the senses of smell and touch to enrich those of sight and hearing.

In leaving the creek, the two column formation was abandoned and the wagons rolled up the little divide in four evenly spaced divisions. There was some semblance of flankers and a rear guard now, and even the cannons were not forsaken. Then came the great moment.

Two hours after the creek had been left the first herd of buffalo was sighted. That it was a small one and more likely to provide tough bull rather than fat cow, made no difference; rear guard, flankers, and cannon were forgotten in one mad, frantic, and ridiculous rush. Men dashed off toward the herd without even their pistols. In ten minutes a moderate sized war-party could have swept down on the caravan and had things nearly their own way. There would have been no buffalo meat in camp that night except that the experienced hunters with the advance guard managed to down two cows and three bulls before the yelling, excitement-maddened crowd stampeded the little herd and drove it all over the prairie.

One tenderfoot, better mounted than his fellows, managed to keep up with a running bull, firing ball after ball into it as fast as he could re-load. He was learning that a bull-buffalo was a hard animal to kill, and when it finally wheeled and charged him, he also learned that it was willing to fight when goaded and made desperate with wounds. Another greenhorn, to get better aim, dismounted and knelt on the earth. With the roar of his gun his horse, with all its trappings, gave one snort and ran away, joining the herd and running with it. It was an hour before anyone had time to listen to his entreaties, and then it was too late to go after the runaway animal. He hoofed it back to the caravan, an angry but wiser man, and was promptly robbed by the man from whom he bought a horse.

It was an open question whether buffalo tongue or beaver tail was the better eating, but no one in the caravan had any fault to find with the portions of buffalo meat which fell to their lot. Despite the toughness and tastelessness of the old bull meat, it was the first fresh meat they had enjoyed since leaving Independence, with the exception of the few who had shared in Hank's antelope, and its poor qualities were overlooked. No one had a chance to gorge himself and to learn that overeating of buffalo flesh causes no distress. They found the meat with the fat and lean more intermixed, juicier, and of a coarser grain than beef. The choice bits were from the tongue, the udder came next in merit, followed by the hump-ribs, tenderloins, and marrow bones. They were fortunate in the selection of the bulls which had been killed, for they were quite fat and in this condition ran the cow meat a close race; all but one old bull, which was tough and stringy beyond belief. Despite the fact that the next camp spot was not very far ahead, the caravan nooned on the open prairie for the cooking of the fresh meat.

The captain signalled for the four-square corral and the evolution was creditably performed. The animals were unhitched and staked outside the enclosure and soon many fires were burning around the encampment and the savory odors of broiling buffalo meat arose on all sides. Coffee pots steeped or boiled at every fire, for coffee was the one unstinted drink of the caravan. It was not long before the encampment was surrounded by groups seated around the fires, most of the men eating with their fingers, Indian fashion, and from the universal satisfaction shown it was evident that buffalo meat had been given a high place by every palate. In contrast to a steady diet of bacon it was a feast fit for epicures. The travelers cared little about their good fortune in finding cows with the first small herd, instead of the usual vanguard or outpost of bulls, for the cows had been there and they had obtained two of them. Two hours later the caravan was moving again, and late that afternoon reached the Little Arkansas, where the first trouble with a treacherous river bed was experienced.

Knowing what was in store for them, the captain and his lieutenants went ahead with a force of workers to cut a way through the steep banks and to bridge the muddy bed. They found that the banks had been cut by the preceding caravan, but the causeway by now was useless, except as a foundation for a new one. The stream was not very wide, but made up for that by the meanness of its bottom. The trees and brush along the banks provided material for the temporary causeway and it did not take long to build up a "bridge."

The more or less easy-going manner of the captain changed here and his commands had a snap to them that should have given them an unquestioned weight. Because of the restricted space chosen for the camp, the circular corral was formed, and as the divisions reached and crossed the causeway they fell in behind the last wagon of the one ahead and crawled around until the circle was complete and compact. All animals were to be staked outside the circle until twilight and then driven inside and hobbled for the night. Care was taken to see that there were but few gaps between the wagons and that those were securely closed by chains.

The length of the first tour of guard duty was increased considerably, for the first watch went on as soon as the wagons stopped. They were getting fairly into the Indian country now. Directly north of them lay the range of the Pawnees; to the west of that the home of the Cheyennes; directly west of the Little Arkansas roamed the Arapahoes, and to the southwest were the Kiowas and Comanches, both of the latter superb cavalrymen. The last three tribes were being stirred by jealous New Mexicans to harass the caravans. And the interest of all these tribes, and of others beyond them in several directions, was centered on the prairie between the Little Arkansas and the valley of the Arkansas, eastward from where the latter river left the mountains. This was the great range of the buffalo, and the buffalo was food, clothing, habitation, and figured very largely in other necessaries of the savage tribes.

The peculiar, curving, and ever-shifting migration of the great herds was followed by hunting parties, which became war-parties in a wink. Many were the bloody battles fought between the tribes on that stretch of prairie between the Little Arkansas and the two Coon Creeks. The Pawnees claimed sovereignty over that part of the country around Pawnee Rock, but it was one that the tribe did not dare to enjoy with any degree of permanence. Raiding parties from the south, west, and north constantly challenged their title, and because of these collisions hardly a hunting party dared show itself unless in strength. There were, it is true, small bands roaming the plains, especially after dark, which traveled on foot; but these were out with the avowed and set purpose of stealing horses, on which, if successful, they made their escape and rode home. This especially was a Pawnee trick, and especially adept were the Pawnees in creeping up to a herd of draft animals and stampeding the whole bunch. More than one party of traders had thus been left afoot in mid-prairie and forced to abandon what they could not carry on their backs. While the Pawnee country was supposed to be north of the Platte, up around the Loup Fork, they often raided in force well into the Comanche and Apache country and were as much at home on the south side of the Arkansas River as on any other part of the plains.

When the orders came to drive the animals inside the corral and hobble them, there was a great deal of complaint. It was contended that they could not get food enough in such a restricted space, crowded as it would be with horses, oxen, and mules; that they would injure each other; that there would be great trouble in each man getting his own in the morning; that they would burst through some weak spot and wander away during the night. To all these objections the captain remained obdurate. Any man who left his animals outside the corral and lost them would not be given replacements at the expense of other teams, and could make what shift he thought best for the transportation of his merchandise.

Tom and his trapper friends, with some of the more experienced traders, went among the grumblers and labored with them, preaching that from now on the utmost, unremitting vigilance would be necessary day and night, for the danger of losing the animals would grow with every mile and would not cease until the Mexican settlements were nearly in sight. And the worse the weather was,