Hardly an hour had passed when Dick heard a joyous whoop, and, looking up, as his hand involuntarily reached out toward his ready firearm, he discovered his camp-mate staggering in, bearing a package of meat done up in a portion of hide.
"You were lucky, then, I see," ventured Dick, as the other threw his burden down.
"It was as easy a job as I ever had," replied Roger, panting a little after his exertions. "Why, Dick, I could have shot a dozen, if I'd wanted, they were so thick through the timber, and seemed to be wanting to just lie there and rest. The hardest thing was to get a chance to cut up my game, after it had fallen. You see, I was afraid some old bull might take a notion to charge me; but I managed it all right, and without any fight, either."
"I hope you got a yearling, then," remarked the camp guard, as he started to open the meat pack.
"Just what I did," replied Roger. "With all those around to choose from, I picked the very choicest and fattest in sight. Oh! I can hardly wait to get some in the pan, I'm so hungry."
And so it came about that even the great buffalo stampede, that at one time had threatened to bring the journey of the young pioneers to a speedy termination, was the means of supplying them with food.
When the fresh meat was done to a turn, both lads pronounced it the very finest they had ever eaten; and somehow it seemed to remove some of the sting from their inglorious night gallop in front of the panic-stricken herd.
Then once more the forward movement was resumed; for their determination to overtake the expedition that was piercing the Western wilderness had not abated. Accustomed to meeting and overcoming difficulties, the boys thought little of things that might seem discouragements in the eyes of those less trained in the ways of borderers and hunters.
No doubt they would see more of these shaggy animals, if they stayed any length of time upon the prairies along the upper Missouri, for at that time the buffalo entered largely into all the history of the many Indian tribes living west of the Mississippi, and pictures of its chase could be found painted on thousands of the skin teepees used by the red hunters. Its meat, when dried, afforded their families sustenance through the long winters, and the annual drive, when hundreds of the ungainly beasts would be killed, was an event that took place every autumn. If the buffalo failed to show up in numbers, it promised to be a lean year for that unfortunate tribe, and the hunters would have to keep busy after the ground was knee-deep in snow, trying to bring in moose, caribou, or other animals that did not migrate each season to the warmer southland.