American Big-Game Hunting: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. Boone and Crockett Club
fearlessly, almost carelessly, and walked up on to a high point of ground jutting out into the valley or creek bottom he had just crossed. After a swift glance up and down the creek he turned, parted the bushes in front of him, and disappeared. I readily recognized him even at that distance as an Ogallala Sioux. After waiting probably ten minutes to assure myself there were no others with him, knowing it was seldom if ever they are seen alone on foot, I proceeded down the creek, intending to learn if he was heading in the direction of the stockade.
When just at the identical spot where I had last seen the Indian, an unearthly screech sounded in the chaparral a few feet in front of me, followed instantly by the bang of a gun, and I felt a blow on my side which nearly turned me around. What thoughts chased themselves through my excited imagination as I felt that terrible bullet plowing its way through my vitals will never be told. Then, as visions of the whole Sioux tribe dancing around my scalpless body vanished, I realized the truth. A disturbed sand-hill crane, that had alighted there during my detour, had screeched almost in my ear, and my stockless rifle, which I was carrying at full cock, had been discharged, nearly fracturing my ribs by the recoil. I felt truly thankful that California Joe was not present, for if my hair did not actually stand on end, I certainly had all the sensations of this once experienced never to be forgotten feeling.
With a sigh of relief I went back to "Coffee" and the dogs, and after cinching up the former until he looked like a wasp, and arranging the compress on Kentuck, I struck out for French Creek at a trot that hustled both the crippled dogs and overloaded "Coffee" to keep up with. Upon coming down into French Creek valley, about two miles above the stockade, another and greater surprise awaited me; for there I found encamped a party of prospectors, arrived from Fort Fetterman. As I had not for months set eyes upon any white man except my own immediate party, this was a treat as pleasant as it was unexpected. The fact that "Coffee" boldly deserted me here did not deter me from staying to dinner, especially when I saw they had both coffee and flapjacks—delicacies that I had not reveled in for some weeks past. After spending an hour with them, I started down the creek, leaving poor Kentuck thoroughly exhausted from loss of blood, and unable to walk another step. To the astonishment of the boys, I walked into the stockade with a piece of bacon swinging in one hand and a sack of flour on my back. I doubt if they would have been more surprised had I walked in with General Grant and Queen Victoria on either arm.
"Coffee" had made a bee-line for home, anxious to be relieved of a load he had carried continuously for almost twenty-four hours. As I was so long in following him, they were beginning to feel alarmed at the continued absence of "Blue Grass,"—a name given me by Joe, and one that clung to me throughout my stay in the Black Hills.
That night we went up to the new camp and sat around a blazing log-heap, listening to the news from "the States" until long after midnight. Kentuck we swung in a blanket, taking turn about carrying him home, and it was many weeks before he was again in condition to accompany me on a hunt.
Roger D. Williams.
Big Game in the Rockies
Some eight or ten years ago it was by no means difficult, for one who knew where to go and how to hunt, to get excellent shooting in northwestern Wyoming. Large game was then moderately abundant, with the exception of buffalo. The latter had just been exterminated, but, bleaching in the sun, the ghastly evidences of man's sordid and selfish policy lay exposed at every step.
Indian troubles of a very formidable character did a great deal toward keeping the game intact in this portion of the country by keeping the white man out, and while other parts of Wyoming grew, and towns sprang up with rapid growth to become in an incredibly short time cities, involving in destruction, as the past sad history shows, the wild animals in their vicinity, this Northwestern portion remained unsettled, and acted as an asylum to receive within its rocky mountain-ranges and vast sheltering forests the scattering bands of elk and deer fleeing from annihilation and the encroaching haunts of men. As soon as it was safe then, and in some instances unquestionably before, cattlemen, not inaptly styled pioneers of civilization, began to drift down along the valley of the Big Horn, and, like the patriarchs of old, "brought their flocks with them," settling here and there, wherever they could find advantageous sites for their ranches.
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