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He was a pioneer at heart; he had opened up that rich new country; he had conquered all obstacles, and that was enough to make him content. "Papa, when shall I be big enough to fight bars and bufflers and Injuns?" asked Noah, stopping in his play and straddling his father's knee. "My boy, did you not have Indians enough a short time ago?" "But, papa, I did not get to see any.
On being asked the cause of his odd freak of dress, when he had joined the train a few miles out from Cheyenne, the youth had laughingly replied: "Why, you see, it is to attract bufflers, if we should meet any, out on the plains 'twixt this and the Hills."
They ain't over leg-free." "But how should we do for provisions, in that case? We could never cross the desert without them." "Why, cap, thur's no diffeeculty 'bout that. Wi' the parairas as dry as they are, I kud stampede that hul cavayard as easy as a gang o' bufflers; and we'd come in for a share o' them, I reckin. Thur's a wus thing than that, this child smells." "What?"
"You kin tell tales 'bout the big herds o' bufflers on the plains that nobody will b'lieve, but they're true jest the same. Once at the Platte I saw a herd crossin' fur five days, an' it stretched up an' down the river ez fur ez the eye could see." "How do they all live? Where do they find enough grass to eat?" asked Will.
'I stopped here to get water for this steam man, as we call him. You know anything that travels by steam must have the water to generate it. 'I say, younker, I don't want none of yer big words to me. Ef I h'ar any more, b'ars and bufflers, ef I don't crack yer over the head with Sweetlove, my shootin'-iron, so mind what yer say, fur I won't stand no nonsense.
They wudn't 'a been if I'd 'a had my traps; but there wa'n't a critter, from the minners in the waters to the bufflers on the paraira, that didn't look like they knowed how this niggur were fixed. I kud git nuthin' for two days but lizard, an' scarce at that." "Lizard's but poor eatin'," remarked one. "'Ee may say that. This hyur thigh jeint's fat cow to it it are."
Where was the owner? Could he have escaped from the thicket while the men were engaged around the fallen buffaloes? He might, though it was barely probable; but the hunters knew that these savages run more like wild animals, like hares, than human beings, and he might have escaped to the chapparal. "If that Injun has got clar," said Garey, "we've no time to lose in skinnin' them bufflers.
"Betty, will you fill my pipe?" asked the Colonel, when he had finished his supper and had pulled his big chair nearer the fire. His oldest child, Noah, a sturdy lad of six, climbed upon his knee and plied him with questions. "Did you see any bars and bufflers?" he asked, his eyes large and round. "No, my lad, not one." "How long will it be until I am big enough to go?"
It didn't cut no mustard, an' I drifted to the Bluffs. This train was pullin' west, an' I hired on for guide. I've got a few wagons o' my own iron, flour an' bacon for my post beyant the Rockies ef we don't all git our ha'r lifted afore then! "We're in between the Sioux and the Pawnees now," he went on. "They're huntin' the bufflers not ten mile ahead.
I must have the free, wild life of the plains, the canter after the Texas steers, and the fierce battles with my peers. For me the boundless, the glorious West!" "Chee! It must be something grand that wild life!" interrupted Boogles. "That's the real stuff the cowboy and trapper on them peraries, hunting bufflers and Injuns. I seen a film " Jimmie Time frowned at this.
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