More dense became the brute mass. Whirled this way and that, as Piegan
led, I knew neither east, west, north or south from one moment to
another. Betimes we found a stretch of open country, and gave our horses
the steel, but always to bring up suddenly against the bison plodding in
groups, in ranks, in endless files. They were ubiquitous; stolid
obstructions that we could neither avoid nor ride down. Our progress
became monotonous, a succession of fruitless attempts to advance;
hopeless, like wandering in a subtle maze. Bison to the right of us,
bison to the left of us, an uncounted swarm behind us, and as many
before--but they neither bellowed nor thundered; they passed like
phantoms in the night, soundlessly save for the muffled trampling of
cloven hoofs, and here and there upon occasion hoarse coughings that
were strangled by the wind.
And we rode as silently as the bison marched. For each one of us had
seen that one-minded pilgrimage of the brown cattle take place in moons
gone by. I recalled a time when a trail-herd lay on the Platte and the
buffalo barred their passing for two days--even made fourteen riders and
three thousand Texas steers give ground. Is it not history that the St.
Louis-Benton river-boats backed water when the bison crossed the
Missouri in the spring and fall? Remembering these, and other times that
the herds had gathered and swept over the plains, a plague of monstrous
locusts, pushing aside men and freight-trains, I knew what would happen
should the buffalo close their ranks, marshal the scattered groups into
closer formation, quicken the pace of the multitude that poured down
from the north.
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