 | CHAPTER XXXIII. The Crayon miscellany |  |
33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
A Council in the Camp. Reasons for facing
homewards. Horses lost. Departure with a
detachment on the homeward route. Swamp.
Wild horse. Camp scene by night. The owl,
binger of dawn.
While breakfast was preparing, a council was
held as to our future movements. Symptoms
of discontent had appeared for a day or two
past, among the rangers, most of whom, unaccustomed
to the life of the prairies, had become impatient
of its privations, as well as the restraints
of the camp. The want of bread had been felt
severely, and they were wearied with constant
travel. In fact, the novelty and excitement of
the expedition were at an end. They had
hunted the deer, the bear, the elk, the buffalo,
and the wild horse, and had no further object of
leading interest to look forward to. A general
inclination prevailed, therefore, to turn homewards.
Grave reasons disposed the Captain and his
officers to adopt this resolution. Our horses
were generally much jaded by the fatigues of
travelling and hunting, and had fallen away sadly
tethered at night, to protect them from Indian
depredations. The late rains, too, seemed to
have washed away the nourishment from the
scanty herbage that remained; and since our
encampment during the storm, our horses had
lost flesh and strength rapidly. With every
possible care, horses, accustomed to grain, and
to the regular and plentiful nourishment of the
stable and the farm, lose heart and condition
in travelling on the prairies. In all expeditions
of the kind we were engaged in, the hardy Indian
horses, which are generally mustangs, or a
cross of the wild breed, are to be preferred.
They can stand all fatigues, hardships, and privations,
and thrive on the grasses and wild herbage
of the plains.
Our men, too, had acted with little forethought;
galloping off whenever they had a chance, after
the game that we encountered while on the
march. In this way they had strained and wearied
their horses, instead of husbanding their
strength and spirits. On a tour of the kind,
horses should as seldom as possible be put off of
a quiet walk; and the average day's journey
should not exceed ten miles.
We had hoped, by pushing forward, to reach
the bottoms of the Red river, which abound with
young cane, a most nourishing forage for cattle
us several days to arrive there, and in the mean
time many of our horses would probably give
out. It was the time, too, when the hunting parties
of Indians set fire to the prairies; the herbage,
throughout this part of the country, was
in that parched state, favourable to combustion,
and there was daily more and more risk, that
the prairies between us and the fort would be
set on fire by some of the return parties of
Osages, and a scorched desert left for us to traverse.
In a word, we had started too late in
the season, or loitered too much in the early part
of our march, to accomplish our originally intended
tour; and there was imminent hazard, if
we continued on, that we should lose the greater
part of our horses; and, besides suffering various
other inconveniences, be obliged to return
on foot. It was determined, therefore, to give
up all further progress, and, turning our faces to
the south-east, to make the best of our way back
to Fort Gibson.
This resolution being taken, there was an immediate
eagerness to put it into operation.
Several horses, however, were missing, and
among others those of the Captain and the Surgeon.
Persons had gone in search of them, but
the morning advanced without any tidings of
them. Our party in the mean time, being all
to set off in the advance, with his original
escort of a lieutenant and fourteen rangers,
leaving the Captain to come on at his convenience,
with the main body. At ten o'clock,
we accordingly started, under the guidance of
Beatte, who had hunted over this part of the
country, and knew the direct route to the garrison.
For some distance we skirted the prairie,
keeping a south-east direction; and in the course
of our ride, we saw a variety of wild animals,
deer, white and black wolves, buffaloes, and wild
horses. To the latter, our half-breeds and Tonish
gave ineffectual chase, only serving to add
to the weariness of their already jaded steeds.
Indeed it is rarely that any but the weaker and
least fleet of the wild horses are taken in these
hard racings; while the horse of the huntsman
is prone to be knocked up. The latter, in fact,
risks a good horse to catch a bad one. On this
occasion, Tonish, who was a perfect imp on
horseback, and noted for ruining every animal
he bestrode, succeeded in laming and almost
disabling the powerful grey on which we had
mounted him at the outset of our tour.
After proceeding a few miles, we left the
prairie, and struck to the east, taking what
Beatte pronounced an old Osage war-track.
overgrown with scrubbed forests and entangled
thickets, and intersected by deep ravines, and
brisk running streams, the sources of Little River.
About three o'clock, we encamped by
some pools of water in a small valley, having
come about fourteen miles. We had brought
on a supply of provisions from our last camp,
and supped heartily upon stewed buffalo meat,
roasted venison, beignets, or fritters of flour fried
in bear's lard, and tea made of a species of the
golden rod, which we had found, throughout our
route, almost as grateful a beverage as coffee.
Indeed our coffee, which, as long as it held out,
had been served up with every meal, according
to the custom of the west, was by no means a
beverage to boast of. It was roasted in a frying
pan, without much care, pounded in a leathern
bag, with a round stone, and boiled in our prime
and almost only kitchen utensil, the camp kettle,
in “branch” or brook water; which, on the praries,
is deeply coloured by the soil, of which it
always holds abundant particles in a state of solution
and suspension. In fact, in the course of
our tour, we had tasted the quality of every variety
of soil, and the draughts of water we had
taken might vie in diversity of colour, if not of
flavour, with the tinctures of an apothecary's
shop. Pure, limpid water, is a rare luxury on
Supper over, we placed sentinels about our scanty
and diminished camp, spread our skins and
blankets under the trees, now nearly destitute of
foliage, and slept soundly until morning.
We had a beautiful daybreak. The camp
again resounded with cheerful voices; every
one was animated with the thoughts of soon
being at the fort, and revelling on bread and
vegetables. Even our saturnine man, Beatte,
seemed inspired on the occasion; and as he
drove up the horses for the march, I heard him
singing, in nasal tones, a most forlorn Indian
ditty. All this transient gaiety, however, soon
died away amidst the fatigues of our march,
which lay through the same kind of rough, hilly,
thicketed country as that of yesterday. In the
course of the morning we arrived at the valley
of the Little River, where it wound through a
broad bottom of alluvial soil. At present it had
overflowed its banks, and inundated a great
part of the valley. The difficulty was to distinguish
the stream from the broad sheets of
water it had formed, and to find a place where
it might be forded; for it was in general deep
and miry, with abrupt crumbling banks. Under
the pilotage of Beatte, therefore, we wandered
for some time among the links made by this
winding stream, in what appeared to us a trackless
pools. Sometimes our jaded horses dragged
their limbs forward with the utmost difficulty,
having to toil for a great distance, with the water
up to the stirrups, and beset at the bottom with
roots and creeping plants. Sometimes we had
to force our way through dense thickets of
brambles and grape-vines, which almost pulled
us out of our saddles. In one place, one of the
pack-horses sunk in the mire and fell on his side,
so as to be extricated with great difficulty.
Wherever the soil was bare, or there was a sand
bank, we beheld innumerable tracks of bears,
wolves, wild horses, turkeys, and water-fowl;
showing the abundant sport this valley might
afford to the huntsman. Our men, however,
were sated with hunting, and too weary to be
excited by these signs, which in the outset of
our tour would have put them in a fever of anticipation.
Their only desire at present, was to
push on doggedly for the fortress.
At length we succeeded in finding a fording
place, where we all crossed Little River, with
the water and mire to the saddle girths, and
then halted for an hour and a half, to overhaul
the wet baggage, and give the horses time to
rest.
On resuming our march, we came to a pleasant
little meadow, surrounded by groves of
which was a fine black horse grazing. Beatte,
who was in the advance, beckoned us to halt,
and, being mounted on a mare, approached the
horse gently, step by step, imitating the whinny
of the animal with admirable exactness. The
noble courser of the prairie gazed for a time,
snuffed the air, neighed, pricked up his ears,
and pranced round and round the mare in gallant
style; but kept at too great a distance
for Beatte to throw the lariat. He was a magnificent
object, in all the pride and glory of his
nature. It was admirable to see the lofty and
airy carriage of his head; the freedom of every
movement; the elasticity with which he trod
the meadow. Finding it impossible to get within
noosing distance, and seeing that the horse
was receding and growing alarmed, Beatte slid
down from his saddle, levelled his rifle across
the back of his mare, and took aim, with the
evident intention of creasing him. I felt a throb
of anxiety for the safety of the noble animal,
and called out to Beatte to desist. It was too
late; he pulled the trigger as I spoke; luckily
he did not shoot with his usual accuracy, and I
had the satisfaction to see the coal black steed
dash off unharmed into the forest.
On leaving this valley, we ascended among
broken hills and rugged, ragged forests, equally
were of red clay, and often so steep, that in
descending, the horses would put their feet together
and fairly slide down, and then scramble
up the opposite side like cats. Here and there
among the thickets in the valleys, we met with
sloes and persimmon, and the eagerness with
which our men broke from the line of march,
and ran to gather these poor fruits, showed how
much they craved some vegetable condiment,
after living so long exclusively on animal food.
About half past three, we encamped near a
brook in a meadow, where there was some scanty
herbage for our half famished horses. As
Beatte had killed a fat doe in the course of the
day, and one of our company a fine turkey, we
did not lack for provisions.
It was a splendid autumnal evening. The
horizon after sunset, was of a clear apple green,
rising into a delicate lake which gradually lost
itself in a deep purple blue. One narrow streak
of cloud, of a mahogany colour, edged with amber
and gold, floated in the west, and just beneath
it was the evening star, shining with the
pure brilliancy of a diamond. In unison with
this scene, there was an evening concert of insects
of various kinds, all blended and harmonized
into one sober and somewhat melancholy
note, which I have always found to have a soothing
musings.
The night that succeeded was calm and beautiful.
There was a faint light from the moon,
now in its second quarter, and after it had set,
a fine star light, with shooting meteors. The
wearied rangers, after a little murmuring conversation
round their fires, sank to rest at an early
hour, and I seemed to have the whole scene to
myself. It is delightful in thus bivouacking on
the prairies, to lie awake and gaze at the stars;
it is like watching them from the deck of a ship
at sea, when at one view we have the whole
cope of heaven. One realizes, in such lonely
scenes, that companionship with these beautiful
luminaries that made astronomers of the eastern
shepherds, as they watched their flocks by night.
How often, while contemplating their mild and
benignant radiance, I have called to mind the
exquisite text of Job: “Canst thou bind the secret
influences of the Pleiades, or loose the
bonds of Orion?” I do not know why it was,
but I felt this night unusually affected by the
solemn magnificence of the firmament; and
seemed, as I lay thus under the open vault of
heaven, to inhale with the pure untained air, an
exhilarating buoyancy of spirit, and as it were,
an ecstasy of mind. I slept and waked alternately;
and when I slept, my dreams partook
morning, one of the sentinels, the oldest
man in the troop, came and took a seat near
me: he was weary and sleepy, and impatient to
be relieved. I found he had been gazing at the
heavens also, but with different feelings.
“If the stars don't deceive me,” said he, “it
is near daybreak.”
“There can be no doubt of that,” said Beatte,
who lay close by. “I heard an owl just now.”
“Does the owl, then, hoot towards daybreak?”
asked I.
“Aye, sir, just as the cock crows.”
This was a useful habitude of the bird of wisdom,
of which I was not aware. Neither the
stars nor owl deceived their votaries. In a short
time there was a faint streak of light in the east.
| CHAPTER XXXIII. The Crayon miscellany | |