Buffalo Bill was to be our guide. He informed us that Wild Bill was his cousin. Cody is spare and wiry in figure, admirably versed in plain lore, and altogether the best guide I ever saw. The mysterious plain is a book that he knows by heart. He crossed it twice as teamster, while a mere boy, and has spent the greater part of his life on it since. He led us over its surface on starless nights, when the shadow of the blackness above hid our horses and the earth, and though many a time with no trail to follow and on the very mid-ocean of the expanse, he never made a failure. Buffalo Bill has since figured in one of Buntline's Indian romances. We award him the credit of being a good scout and most excellent guide; but the fact that he can slaughter buffalo is by no means remarkable, since the American bison is dangerous game only to amateurs.
We were off early on Tuesday morning for the Saline, our course toward which lay before us a little west of north, the citizens turning out to see us start. We had just parted from Gripe, who went East on the first train to get his ribs healed. "To think, gentlemen," said he, "that I should have escaped rebel bullets and Indian atrocities, only to have my ribs cracked at last by a stampede of mules!" Poor Gripe's farewell reminded me strongly of the old saying about the ruling passion strong in death. As he stood on the platform, with one hand against his aching side, he could not refrain from waving a courtly adieu with the other, and bowing himself from our presence, into the car, as if leaving the stage after a political speech.
We were sorry to lose our friend, and this, together with the thought of the weeks of uncertainties and anxieties which lay before us, made our exit from Hays rather a solemn affair. Even Tammany Sachem's face was ironed out so completely that not a smile wrinkled it. Dobeen had loaded one wagon with culinary weapons, and now sat among his pots and pans, evidently ill at ease and wishing himself doing any thing else rather than about to plunge further into the wilderness.
When about to mount Cynocephalus, Semi's feelings were wounded by a depraved urchin who suggested, "You'd better fust knock that fly off, Boss. Both on ye 'll be too much for the hoss!" Fortunately, perhaps, for our feelings, the remainder of the inhabitants were so civil that further criticisms on our outfit, though they may have been ripe at their tongues' end, were carefully repressed.
Moving out over the divide above town the Professor noticed the general depression of the party, and forthwith began philosophising.
"My friends," said he, "had the feelings which explorers suffer, when fairly launched, been allowed to be present during the days of preparation, science and discovery would be in their infancy. Enthusiasm bridges the first obstacles to an undertaking, but others roll on and block the explorer's path, and the spirit which has got him into the difficulty momentarily deserts him. If properly courted, however, she returns, and meanwhile the traveler is afforded the opportunity of looking, through matter-of-fact spectacles, along his future journey. What he thought pebbles reveal themselves as hills, and what he had marked on his chart as hills develop into mountains. These he must recognize and examine with all the resolution he can summon, and he will be the more able to climb them from expecting to do so. Right here is the critical point in his journey. Numerous cross-roads branch off—some right, others left, but all with a brighter prospect down them. Perhaps on one, a wife and children stand at the door of their home, beckoning him. The garden that his own hand planted blooms in a background of flowers, while the path he has now chosen sparkles with winter snow. He knows, however, that beyond these, perhaps amid sterile mountains, are the precious diamonds he seeks.
"It is wise that, where these roads branch off—some to castles of indolence, others to comfortable homes and moderate exertion—the man should be left alone for a time and allowed to survey the rough path before him, with all the blinding glamour of enthusiasm subdued by the light of truth, and with a full knowledge of all the stumbling blocks which lie before him. If he then thumbs the edge of his hunting-knife, examines his Henry rifle, and presses forward, the metal is there, and from that time onward you may at any time learn of his whereabouts by inquiring at the temple of fame."
Sachem interrupted the Professor to remonstrate at the girding of loins being left out. He had always been used to the girding in similar discourses, and considered that loins were in much more general use than Henry rifles.
And now Shamus, from his perch on the pans, suddenly broke in: "Faith, Professor, your enthusiasm once brought me sore trouble. It got me into a haunted house, when the clock was strikin' midnight, and my legs were sore put to it to get me out fast enough. Ye see, I bet a pig with my next cousin that I would stay all night in an old house full of spirits. The master and his house-keeper had been murdered in the tenantry riots, and the boys that did the business, they swung for it soon afterward. And now, there was a regular barricadin' and attackin' going on those nights ever since. While I was lookin' at the old clock, and thinkin' of the pig I'd drag home in the morning, I must have dramed a little. He was as likely a pig as yez ever saw, and I was listenin' proudly to his swate cries as I carried him from the sty, and feelin' full enough of enthusiasm to stay there a hundred years. Just then there was a rustlin' in front, and I opened my eyes wide, and there stood the old house-keeper leanin' against the shaky clock, with her ear to its yellow face, and lookin' straight behind me to where I could feel the master was sittin'. There was an awful light in her eyes, and I thought I heard her say—any way, I knew she was sayin' it—'Hark, Sir Donald, they're comin', but the soldiers will be here, too, at twelve.' An' then there was a sort of shudder in the old clock and it commenced a wheezin' an' bangin' away, a tryin' to get through the strokes of twelve, as it did twenty years before. But it hadn't got out half, when I heard the crowd outside scrapin' against the window sill. An' then there come a report, and the room was filled with smoke, an' somethin' hit the back of my head. How I got out I don't know, but when I come to myself I was running for dear life across the common. I have the scar of the ghost's bullet ever since. See here, yez can see it for yourselves." And taking off his cap, Shamus showed us a bald spot about the size of a silver dollar on the back of his cranium.
"And what became of the pig?" asked Mr. Colon quietly.
"Faith, an' my cousin carried him home next morning," replied Shamus, with a regretful sigh; "and lady Dobeen, bless her sowl, never forgot to tell me of that to her dying day. We were needin' the bacon them times."
Sachem, who delighted to spoil our cook's stories, declared that, to gain a pig, it was worth the cousin's while to fire an old musket through the window over a drunken Irishman inside. Still that did not excuse him for his carelessness; he should have seen that the wad flew higher.
What Dobeen's answer might have been will never be known; for, just at that moment, the attention of the entire party was suddenly directed to a dark mass of moving objects away off upon our right, a mile distant at least, and to our untrained eyes entirely unrecognizable. The Mexicans, however, pronounced them buffaloes. Whether thinking to vindicate his reputation for personal courage, or whether simply from love of excitement, is not exactly clear, but Dobeen eagerly requested permission to pursue them, and as he would, ex officio, be debarred the pleasure of future sport, consent was given. This was done the more readily, because we knew that Shamus, while as inexperienced in the chase as any of us, was also a wretched rider; for, although constantly boasting of the tournaments he had been engaged in, we all indorsed Sachem's opinion, that, if ever connected with such an affair at all, it must have been in holding a horse, not riding one.
It was worthy of note that every one of the party was as eager for the chase as Shamus, and yet that personage was allowed to ride off alone. Mr. Colon, it is true, essayed to join his company, but after going a hundred yards or so, suddenly changed his mind and came back. Our maiden efforts in buffalo hunting promised such modesty as to refuse a public appearance, unless together.
Our cook had been instructed by the guide to avail himself of the ravines, and after getting as near the herd as possible, then spur rapidly up to it. He went off at a gallop, his solid body flying clear of the saddle whenever the donkey's feet struck ground, and soon disappeared in a ravine which seemed to promise a winding way almost into the very midst of the herd. We watched intently for his reappearance. In such periods of suspense the minutes seem strangely long, creeping as slowly toward their allotted three-score as they do when one, at a sickbed vigil,