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Auberry, as it chanced, fell in with a party bound for Denver, five men who had two wagons, a heavy Conestoga freight wagon, or prairie schooner, and a lighter vehicle without a cover. We arranged with these men, and their cook as to our share in the mess box, and so threw in our dunnage with theirs, Auberry and I purchasing us a good horse apiece.
We butchered our buffalo as Auberry had showed me, from the backbone down, as he sat dead on his forearms, splitting the skin along the spine, and laying it out for the meat to rest upon.
Search what way I might, I could find nothing to relieve our plight. I knew that Auberry would before this time have gone back to follow our trail, perhaps starting after us even before night had approached; but now the rain had blotted out all manner of trails, so rescue from that source was not to be expected.
The best meat is on top, anyhow"; and then he gave me lessons in buffalo values, which later I remembered. We had taken some meat from my bull, since I insisted upon it in spite of better beef from a young cow Auberry had killed not far above, when suddenly I heard the sound of a bugle, sharp and clear, and recognized the notes of the "recall."
It's rarely a single man could do that, nor have I seen it done in all my life with so big a bull." I laughed at him. "It was easy. My father and I once lifted a loaded wagon out of the mud." "The Indians," said Auberry, "don't bother to turn a bull over. They split the hide down the back, and skin both ways.
They drove their horses down to drink scrambled up the bank again, and then presently, in answer to some sort of signal, quietly rode on a quarter of a mile or so and pulled up at the side of the valley. They saw abundance of meat lying there already killed, and perhaps guessed that we could not use all of it. "Auberry," said Belknap, "we must go talk to these people, and see what's up."
At times old Auberry growled at this new feature of the landscape. "That was not here when I first came West," he said, "and I don't like its looks. The old ways were good enough. Now they are even talkin' of runnin' a railroad up the valley as though horses couldn't carry in everything the West needs or bring out everything the East may want. No, the old ways were good enough for me."
Time and again, when our forces were marching against the hill tribes of northwestern India, we found they knew all of our plans a hundred miles ahead of us how, none of us could tell only the fact was there, plain and unmistakable." "They never do tell," broke in Auberry. "You couldn't get a red to explain any of this to you not even a squaw you have lived with for years.
"You'd be much better off," I ventured, "if I hadn't done any rescuing at all, and if we'd all stayed over there on the boat." I pointed to the lights of the River Belle, lying on the opposite shore, something like a mile above us. "We're all right now," said old Auberry after a time.
Still, since I had come hither as a last resort, it would do no good for me to go back unsuccessful. Should I wait here, or at Leavenworth; or should I go on still farther west? Auberry decided that for me. "I tell you what we can do," he said.
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