“I’m so glad you’ve come home safe,” she said.
“Safe an’ sound, lass, an’ glad to find you well,” answered the hunter, as he leaned on his long rifle, looking from Nell to Colonel Zane’s sister. “Betty, I allus gave you first place among border lasses, but here’s one as could run you most any kind of a race,” he said, with the rare smile which so warmly lighted his dark, stern face.
“Lew Wetzel making compliments! Well, of all things!” exclaimed the colonel’s sister.
Jonathan Zane stood closely scanning Wetzel’s features. Colonel Zane, observing his brother’s close scrutiny of the hunter, guessed the cause, and said:
“Lew, tell us, did you see Wingenund over the sights of your rifle?”
“Yes,” answered the hunter simply.
A chill seemed to strike the hearts of the listeners. That simple answer, coming from Wetzel, meant so much. Nell bowed her head sadly. Jim turned away biting his lip. Christy looked across the valley. Colonel Zane bent over and picked up some pebbles which he threw hard at the cabin wall. Jonathan Zane abruptly left the group, and went into the house.
But the colonel’s sister fixed her large, black eyes on Wetzel’s face.
“Well?” she asked, and her voice rang.
Wetzel was silent for a moment. He met her eyes with that old, inscrutable smile in his own. A slight shade flitted across his face.
“Betty, I missed him,” he said, calmly, and, shouldering his long rifle, he strode away.
* * * *
Nell and Jim walked along the bluff above the river. Twilight was deepening. The red glow in the west was slowly darkening behind the boldly defined hills.
“So it’s all settled, Jim, that we stay here,” said Nell.
“Yes, dear. Colonel Zane has offered me work, and a church besides. We are very fortunate, and should be contented. I am happy because you’re my wife, and yet I am sad when I think of—him. Poor Joe!”
“Don’t you ever think we—we wronged him?” whispered Nell.
“No, he wished it. I think he knew how he would end. No, we did not wrong him; we loved him.”
“Yes, I loved him—I loved you both,” said Nell softly.
“Then let us always think of him as he would have wished.”
“Think of him? Think of Joe? I shall never forget. In winter, spring and summer I shall remember him, but always most in autumn. For I shall see that beautiful glade with its gorgeous color and the dark, shaded spring where he lies asleep.”
* * * *
The years rolled by with their changing seasons; every autumn the golden flowers bloomed richly, and the colored leaves fell softly upon the amber moss in the glade of Beautiful Spring.
The Indians camped there no more; they shunned the glade and called it the Haunted Spring. They said the spirit of a white dog ran there at night, and the Wind-of-Death mourned over the lonely spot.
At long intervals an Indian chief of lofty frame and dark, powerful face stalked into the glade to stand for many moments silent and motionless.
And sometimes at twilight when the red glow of the sun had faded to gray, a stalwart hunter slipped like a shadow out of the thicket, and leaned upon a long, black rifle while he gazed sadly into the dark spring, and listened to the sad murmur of the waterfall. The twilight deepened while he stood motionless. The leaves fell into the water with a soft splash, a whippoorwill caroled his melancholy song.
From the gloom of the forest came a low sigh which swelled thrillingly upon the quiet air, and then died away like the wailing of the night wind.
Quiet reigned once more over the dark, murky grave of the boy who gave his love and his life to the wilderness.
THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN (1908) [Part 1]
PREFATORY NOTE
Buffalo Jones needs no introduction to American sportsmen, but to these of my readers who are unacquainted with him a few words may not be amiss.
He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois prairie, and he has devoted practically all of his life to the pursuit of wild animals. It has been a pursuit which owed its unflagging energy and indomitable purpose to a singular passion, almost an obsession, to capture alive, not to kill. He has caught and broken the will of every well-known wild beast native to western North America. Killing was repulsive to him. He even disliked the sight of a sporting rifle, though for years necessity compelled him to earn his livelihood by supplying the meat of buffalo to the caravans crossing the plains. At last, seeing that the extinction of the noble beasts was inevitable, he smashed his rifle over a wagon wheel and vowed to save the species. For ten years he labored, pursuing, capturing and taming buffalo, for which the West gave him fame, and the name Preserver of the American Bison.
As civilization encroached upon the plains Buffalo Jones ranged slowly westward; and today an isolated desert-bound plateau on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Arizona is his home. There his buffalo browse with the mustang and deer, and are as free as ever they were on the rolling plains.
In the spring of 1907 I was the fortunate companion of the old plainsman on a trip across the desert, and a hunt in that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep canyons and giant pines. I want to tell about it. I want to show the color and beauty of those painted cliffs and the long, brown-matted bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests; I want to give a suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; and particularly I want to throw a little light upon the life and nature of that strange character and remarkable man, Buffalo Jones.
Happily in remembrance a writer can live over his experiences, and see once more the moonblanched silver mountain peaks against the dark blue sky; hear the lonely sough of the night wind through the pines; feel the dance of wild expectation in the quivering pulse; the stir, the thrill, the joy of hard action in perilous moments; the mystery of man’s yearning for the unattainable.
As a boy I read of Boone with a throbbing heart, and the silent moccasined, vengeful Wetzel I loved.
I pored over the deeds of later men—Custer and Carson, those heroes of the plains. And as a man I came to see the wonder, the tragedy of their lives, and to write about them. It has been my destiny—what a happy fulfillment of my dreams of border spirit!—to live for a while in the fast-fading wild environment which produced these great men with the last of the great plainsmen.
—Zane Grey.
CHAPTER 1
THE ARIZONA DESERT
One afternoon, far out on the sun-baked waste of sage, we made camp near a clump of withered pinyon trees. The cold desert wind came down upon us with the sudden darkness. Even the Mormons, who were finding the trail for us across the drifting sands, forgot to sing and pray at sundown. We huddled round the campfire, a tired and silent little group. When out of the lonely, melancholy night some wandering Navajos stole like shadows to our fire, we hailed their advent with delight. They were good-natured Indians, willing to barter a blanket or bracelet; and one of them, a tall, gaunt fellow, with the bearing of a chief, could speak a little English.
“How,” said he, in a deep chest voice.
“Hello, Noddlecoddy,” greeted Jim Emmett, the Mormon guide.
“Ugh!” answered the Indian.
“Big paleface—Buffalo Jones—big chief—buffalo man,” introduced Emmett, indicating Jones.
“How.” The Navajo spoke with dignity, and extended a friendly hand.
“Jones big white chief—rope buffalo—tie up tight,” continued Emmett, making motions with his arm, as if he were whirling a lasso.
“No big—heap small buffalo,” said