The Kaw stretched eastward, broad and shallow, with numerous sand bars, and along its edges grew the scarlet sumach and some stunted bushes, and between these and the corn a high, coarse bottom grass, with intervals at every hundred yards or so apart of a shorter variety, like that on a poor prairie. Among the bushes, there was no grass whatever, and yet the birds seemed indifferently to frequent one spot equally with another.
In less than ten minutes after leaving the wagon, all the dogs were pointing on a barren looking spot, thinly sprinkled with scrubby bushes not larger than jimson-weeds. They were several yards apart, so that each animal was clearly acting on his own responsibility.
If it puzzled us the day before to discover any signs of game under their noses, it certainly did so now. There was apparently no place of concealment for any object larger than a field-mouse. The bushes were wide apart, and the soil between was a loose sand. Around the roots of the scrubs, it is true, a few thin, wiry spears of grass struggled into existence, but these covered a space not larger than a man's hand, and it seemed preposterous to imagine that they could be capable of affording cover. That three dogs were pointing straight at three bushes was apparent, but we could see nothing in or about the latter calling for such attention.
Shamus, who had accompanied us, wished to know if the twigs were witch hazels, because, if so, three invisible old beldames might be taking a nap under them, after a midnight ride. "But, then," said Dobeen, "the dog's hairs don't stand on end as they always do in Ireland when they see ghosts and witches." We believe that our worthy cook was really disappointed in not discovering any stray broomsticks lying around. These, he afterward informed us, could not be made invisible, though their owners should take on airy shapes unrecognizable by mortal eyes.
Muggs had suggested urging the dogs in, but the party, wiser from yesterday's experience, desired a ground shot, if it could be secured. The Professor adjusted his lens, and decided to make a personal inspection around the roots of the bush immediately in front of him.
Carefully the sage bent over the suspicious spot, and almost fell backward as, with a whiz and a dart, half a dozen quails flew out, brushing his very nose. Instantly every bush sent forth its fugitives. A flash of feathered balls, and they were all gone. Such whizzing and whirring! it was as if those scraggy bushes were mitrailleuses, in quick succession discharging their loads.
Only one gun had gone off, but that so loudly that our ears rung for several seconds. Mr. Colon had accidentally rammed at least two, perhaps half a dozen, loads into one barrel, and the gun discharged with an aim of its own, the butt very low down. Two birds fell dead. But alas for our Nimrod! Colon stood with one hand on his stomach undecided whether that organ remained or not. On this point, however, he was fully re-assured at the supper-table that night, and in all our after experience, we never knew that gun to have the least opportunity for going off, except when at its owner's shoulder, and he perfectly ready for it.
The two birds were now submitted to the party for inspection. They were fine specimens of the American quail, more properly called by those versed in quailology, the Bob White. This bird is very plentiful throughout Kansas, and just before the shooting season commences, in September, will even frequent the gardens and alight on the houses of Topeka. They "lay close" before a dog, take flight into air with a quick, whirring dart, and their shooting deservedly ranks high. They are very rapid in their movements upon the ground, often running fifty or seventy-five yards before hiding. When this takes place, so closely do they huddle that it is seldom more than the upper bird that can be seen. "Green hunters" sometimes pause, trying to discover the rest of the covey before firing, and experience a great and sudden disgust when the single bird which they have disdained suddenly develops into a dozen flying ones.
We had an eventful days' sport, expending more ammunition than when among the chickens, and with more satisfactory results, as we brought in over two dozen birds. More than half of these were taken by Sachem at one lucky discharge. He saw a covey in the grass, huddled together as they generally are when not running. At these times they form a circle about as large in diameter as the hoop of a nail keg, with tails to the center and heads toward the outside. Fifteen quails would thus be a circle of fifteen heads, and a pail, could it be dropped over the covey, would cover them all. Not only is this an economy of warmth, there being no outsiders half of whose bodies must get chilled, but there is no blind side on which they can be approached, every portion of the circle having its full quota of eyes. Let skunk or fox, or other roamer through the grass, creep ever so stealthily, he will be seen and avoided by flight. Sachem aiming at the midst of such a ring, broke it up as effectually as Boutwell's discharge of bullion did that on Wall Street.
We have since found the frozen bodies of whole covies, which had gone to roost in a circle and been buried under such a heavy fall of snow that the birds could not force their way upward. Their habit is to remain in imprisonment, apparently waiting for the snow to melt before even making an effort for deliverance. Oftentimes it is then too late, a crust having formed above. A severe winter will sometimes completely exterminate the birds in certain localities.
During this first day of quail-shooting, we also saw for the first time flocks of the snow-goose. The Professor counted fifty birds on one sand bar. This variety, in its flight across the continent, apparently passes through but a narrow belt of country, being found, to the best of my knowledge, in but few of the states outside of Kansas.
Our return to the hotel was without accident, and our supper such as hungry hunters might well enjoy. After it was disposed of, we gathered around the ample stove in the hotel office, and lived over again the events of the day.
CHAPTER VI
OFF FOR BUFFALO LAND—THE NAVIGATION OF THE KAW—FORT RILEY—THE CENTER-POST OF THE UNITED STATES—OUR PURCHASE OF HORSES—"LO" AS A SAVAGE AND AS A CITIZEN—GRIPE UNFOLDS THE INDIAN QUESTION—A BALLAD BY SACHEM, PRESENTING ANOTHER VIEW.
Next morning we said good-by to hospitable Topeka, and took up our westward way over the Pacific Railroad. An ever-repeated succession of valley and prairie stretched away on either hand. To the left the Kaw came down with far swifter current than it has in its course below, from its far-away source in Colorado. It might properly be called one of the eaves or water-spouts of the great Rocky Mountain water-shed. With a pitch of over five feet to the mile, its pace is here necessarily a rapid one, and when at freshet height the stream is like a mill-race for foam and fury.
At the junction of the Big Blue we found the old yet pretty town of Manhattan. To this point, in early times, water transit was once attempted. A boat of exceedingly light draught, one of those built to run on a heavy dew, being procured, freight was advertised for, and the navigation of the Kaw commenced. The one hundred miles or more to Manhattan was accomplished principally by means of the capstan, the boat being "warped" over the numberless shallows. This proved easier, of course—a trifle easier—than if she had made the trip on macadamized roads. If her stern had a comfortable depth of water it was seldom indeed, except when her bow was in the air in the process of pulling the boat over a sand bar. The scared catfish were obliged to retreat up stream, or hug close under the banks, to avoid obstructing navigation, and it is even hinted that more than one patriarch of the finny tribe had to be pried out of the way to make room for his new rival to pass.
Once at Manhattan, the steamboat line was suspended for the season, its captain and crew deciding they would rather walk back to the Missouri River than drag the vessel there. Soon afterward, the steamer was burned at her landing, and the Kaw has remained closed to commerce ever since.
About the same time, an enterprising Yankee advocated in the papers the straightening of the river, and providing it with a series of locks, making it a canal. As he had no money of his own with which to develop his ideas into results, and could command nobody's else for that purpose, the project failed in its very inception.
Fort Riley, four miles below Junction City, is claimed as the geographical center of the United States, the exact spot being marked by a post. What a rallying point that stick of wood will be for future generations! When the corner-stone of the National Capitol shall there be laid, the orator of the day can mount that post and exclaim, with eloquent significance, elsewhere impossible, "No north, no south, no east, no west!" and enthusiastic