One By One He Stabbed And Scalped Them, When A Child
Suddenly Awoke And Screamed.
He rushed from the lodge, yelled a
Sioux war-cry, shouted his name in triumph and defiance, and in
A
moment had darted out upon the dark prairie, leaving the whole
village behind him in a tumult, with the howling and baying of dogs,
the screams of women and the yells of the enraged warriors.
Our friend Kearsley, as we learned on rejoining him, signalized
himself by a less bloody achievement. He and his men were good
woodsmen, and well skilled in the use of the rifle, but found
themselves wholly out of their element on the prairie. None of them
had ever seen a buffalo and they had very vague conceptions of his
nature and appearance. On the day after they reached the Platte,
looking toward a distant swell, they beheld a multitude of little
black specks in motion upon its surface.
"Take your rifles, boys," said Kearslcy, "and we'll have fresh meat
for supper." This inducement was quite sufficient. The ten men left
their wagons and set out in hot haste, some on horseback and some on
foot, in pursuit of the supposed buffalo. Meanwhile a high grassy
ridge shut the game from view; but mounting it after half an hour's
running and riding, they found themselves suddenly confronted by
about thirty mounted Pawnees! The amazement and consternation were
mutual. Having nothing but their bows and arrows, the Indians
thought their hour was come, and the fate that they were no doubt
conscious of richly deserving about to overtake them. So they began,
one and all, to shout forth the most cordial salutations of
friendship, running up with extreme earnestness to shake hands with
the Missourians, who were as much rejoiced as they were to escape the
expected conflict.
A low undulating line of sand-hills bounded the horizon before us.
That day we rode ten consecutive hours, and it was dusk before we
entered the hollows and gorges of these gloomy little hills. At
length we gained the summit, and the long expected valley of the
Platte lay before us. We all drew rein, and, gathering in a knot on
the crest of the hill, sat joyfully looking down upon the prospect.
It was right welcome; strange too, and striking to the imagination,
and yet it had not one picturesque or beautiful feature; nor had it
any of the features of grandeur, other than its vast extent, its
solitude, and its wilderness. For league after league a plain as
level as a frozen lake was outspread beneath us; here and there the
Platte, divided into a dozen threadlike sluices, was traversing it,
and an occasional clump of wood, rising in the midst like a shadowy
island, relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing was
moving throughout the vast landscape, except the lizards that darted
over the sand and through the rank grass and prickly-pear just at our
feet. And yet stern and wild associations gave a singular interest
to the view; for here each man lives by the strength of his arm and
the valor of his heart.
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