The Last of the Plainsmen

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 ti

ket or bracelet; and one of them, a tall, gaunt fellow,

he, in a dee

," greeted Jim Emme

swered th

big chief-buffalo man," intro

e with dignity, and ex

tight," continued Emmett, making motions wi

the Indian, holding his hand level

a stern mouth and square jaw, keen eyes, half-closed from years of searching the wide plains; and deep furrows wr

hands to the Navajo, an

ap big buffalo-h

tened up, but kept

-Land of Little Sticks-Naza! Naza! rope musk-ox

avajo, pointing to th

y toward setting sun-go cross Big Wa

nd the Navajos hold him in as much fear and rev

ugar horseback-run long way-dogs chase cougar long time-chase cougar up tree! Me b

's solemn

an heap

rms. "Me strong; me rope cougar-me tie co

d the savage

ed Jones, nodd

Navajo, louder, rai

shouted

the India

arly enough, which had strengthened on our way West, as we met ranchers, prospectors and cowboys. But those few men I had fortunately met, who really knew Jon

an' fifty miles from Flagstaff to Jones range, an' only two drinks on the trail. I know this hyar Buffalo Jones. I knowed him way back in the seventies, when he was doin' them ropin' stunts thet made him famous as the preserver of the American bison. I know about that crazy trip of his'n to the Bar

ce been interested in the old buffalo hunter, I was now fascinated. And now I was with him in the desert and seein

-all this about Jones," remar

nerve? And isn't it cruel to keep wild an

image, and give him dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, ov

a glimpse of the great, strange and absorbing passion of his life. Once he had told me how, when a mere child, he had hazarded limb and neck to capture a fox squirrel, how he had held on to the vicious little animal, though it bit his hand through; how he had never learned to play the games of boyhoo

en only by the low chant-like song of a praying Mormon. Suddenly the hounds bristled, and old Moze, a surly and aggressive dog, rose and ba

sted Jones. "Like as not coyote

nes had procured in that State of uncertain qualities; and the dog had grown old over coon-trails. He was black and white, grizzled and battlescarred; and if ever a dog had an evil eye, Moze was that dog. He had a way of wagging his tail-an indetermina

of fact, fighting was his forte. He whipped all of the dogs in Flagstaff; and when our blood hounds came on from California, he put three of them hors de combat at once, and subdued the pup with a savage growl. His crowning feat, however, made even the stoical Jones open his mouth in amaze. We had taken Moze to the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, and finding it impossible to get over to the north rim, we left him with one of Jones's men, called Rust, who was working on the Canyon trail. Rust's instructions were to bring Moze to Flagstaff in two weeks. He brought the dog a little ahead time, and roared his appreciation of the relief it to get the

ersuasion, had succeeded in establishing some kind of family relation between them and Moze. This night I tied up the bl

the north, where the desert stretched, mysterious and illimitable. How solemn and still it was! I drew in a great breath of the cold air, and thri

seemed so much farther off than I had ever seen them. The wind softly sifted the sand. I hearkened to the tinkle of the cowbe

co peaks behind us glowed a delicate pink. The Mormons were up and doing with the dawn. They were stalwart men, rather silent, and all workers. It was interesting to see them pack for the day

ge were few and far between. I turned often to gaze back at the San Francisco peaks. The snowcapped tips glistened and grew higher, and stood out in sta

e scaly red ground descended gradually; bare red knolls, like waves, rolled away northward; black buttes reared their flat heads; long ranges of san

to the left?" asked Emmett. "The Little Color

," I replied, adding t

to-morrow. If the snow in the mountains has be

led my throat, sending me to the water cask till I was ashamed. When I fell into my bed at

mett. And despite the heat, and the sand in my nostrils, I smelled it, too. The dogs, poor foot-sore fellows, trotted on ahe

close to the bank we were on. The dogs lolled in the water; the horses and mules tried to run in, but were restrained; the men drank, and bathed their faces. According to my Flagstaff

e than a shallow creek; I heard nothing

t. "You'd be surprised to learn how many men and Indians,

boots, and waded out to a little bar. The sand seemed quite firm, but water oozed out around my feet; and when I stepped, th

his stream with hor

un the horses. I've forded here at worse stages than this. Once a team got stuck,

unt, and plunging, splashing, crossed at a pace near a gallop. He retu

wanted to see, but was lost in a veil of yellow mist. Jones yelled in my ear, but I could not hear what he said. Once the wagon wheels struck a stone or log, almost lurching us overboard. A muddy splash blinded me. I cried out in my excitement, and punched Jones in the back. Next moment, the keen exhilaration of the ride gave way to horror. We seemed to drag, and almost stop. Some one roared: "Horse down!" One instant of painful

er. Emmett and his men calmly unhitched. No trace of ala

ine and easy,"

ing that I would find out; that experience for me was but in its infancy; that far across the desert the something whic

nally I waded out over the wet bars and little streams to a point several hundred yards nearer the dogs. Moze was lying down, but the others were

ing my patience. "You've already swum the Big

d lonely puppy, his were the most forlorn I had ever heard. Time after time he plunged in, and with many bitter howls of distress, went back. I kept calling, and at last, hoping to make him come by a show of indifference, I started away. This broke his heart. Putting up his head, he let out a long, melancholy wail, which for aught I knew might have been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the yellow current. Ranger swam like a boy learning. He seemed to be afraid to get wet.

he seventy-mile stretch from

gleaming bare in the sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand dunes, and hills of blue clay, areas of level ground-in all, a

g promise. The fragrance of flowers, the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of music, the mystery of life-all s

s shielded their faces. The dogs began to limp and lag. Ranger had to be taken into a wagon; and then,

koned us onward. But they were a far hundred miles across the shifting sands, and baked day, and ragged rocks. Al

irst was effectually quenched by the mere sight of it. I slept poorly, and lay for hours watching the great stars. The silence was painfully oppressive. If Jones had not begun to give a respectable imitation of the ex

cold, gray clouds tried to blot out the rosy east. I could hardly get up. My lips were cracked; my tongue swollen to twice its natural size; my eyes smarted and burned. The barrels and keg

works of sculptors. Light blue, dark blue, clay blue, marine blue, cobalt blue-every shade of blue was there, but no other color. The other time that I awoke to sensations from without was when we came to the top of a ridge. We had been passing through red-lands.

smiling at me; "that's what haunts th

e in the cool waters. Disappointment was keen. This is what maddens the prospector or sheep-herder lost in the desert. Was it not a terrible thing to be dying of thirst, to see sparkling water, almost to smell it and then realize suddenly that all was only a lying track of the desert, a lure, a delusion? I ceased to wonder at the Mormons, and their search for water, their talk of water. But I had not realized its true significance. I had not known what water

glare. The Mormons sang no more at evening;

bush. The wind, carrying the sand, made a strange hollow roar. All was enveloped in a weird yellow opacity. The sand seeped through the sage bush and swept by with a soft, rustling sound, not unlike th

us. The trail was covered; the wheels hub-deep in sand; the horses, walki

sandy trail, we circled a great red bluff with jagged peaks, that had seemed an interminable obstacle. A scant growth of cedar and sage again made its appearance. Here we halted to pass another night. Un

Emmett. "It's lost. There a

e heard its cry," quo

se, circled away from the fiery, sinking globe. Suddenly the sun sank, the gold changed to gray, then to purple, and shadows formed in the deep gorge at our feet. So sudden was the transform

e came out, at length, on a winding trail cut in the face of a blue overhanging the Colorado River. The first sight of most famous and much-heralded wonders of nature is often disappointing; but never can this be said of the blood-hued Rio Colorado. If it had beauty, it was beauty that appalled. So riveted was my gaze that I could hard

Grand Canyon of Arizona; and the deep, reverberating boom of the river, at flood height, was a

a level, where a long wire cable stretched across the river. Under the

n that?" I asked Emmet

ther side before dark,

ecause I had had experience with bad rivers, and thought I was a judge of dangerous currents. The Colorado slid with a menacing

ong distance before he started across, and then swung into the current. He swept down rapidly, and twice the skiff whirled, and completely turned round; but he reached

ily. When the current struck it, the wire cable sagged, the water boiled and surged under it, raising o

le, I was with him, and we embarked together. Jones said he did not like the looks of the tackle; and when I thought of his by no means small mechanical ski

uys, which maneuver caused the boat to swing stern downstream. When it pointed obliquely, he made fast the guys again. I saw that this served

it cried. Then at times it would seem strangely silent. The current as complex and mutable as human life. It boiled, beat and bulged. The bulge itself was an incompressible thing, like a roaring lift of the waters from submarine expl

ks through the mountain!

a gigantic split that must have been made by a terrible seismic d

ched shore, and I jumped long bef

As he sat rearranging some tackle I remarked to him that of cours

ed; "and it wouldn't be any use if I

accidents here

the river, and row across, as then we hadn't the wire. Just above, on this side, the

rescue them?" I asked,

They neve

tinued, shuddering as I glanced o

it until she goes down. At this season she rises and lowers every day or

t effort. And all the time in my ears dinned the roar, the boom, the rumble of this singularly rapacious and purposeful river-a r