Tomahawk Trail

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 177, 29 July 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

Tomahawk Trail

By Harry Willidms

CM W'TKR in.—(Continued.)

The others of the. party had returned nnd were gathered about Tvmi. sitting up now and looking , elicitly dazed. The bull was dead j not the yard* from the boy. Wyatt, not a bit the worse for his spill, greeted liim boisterously, "Stiy, colonel, that was right natty of you mid that Major horse. Another couple of seconds and Rod would h;n c l>r>«'Ti jelly." "I'll trade you horses, colonel," la united Schwartz. "Of course, 1 want a few dollars to boot," he added, with mock caution. | This magnanimous offer raised a general laugh, as Schwartz's mount was a weedy littlt runt of a mustang worth, perhaps, ten dollars. "What exactly did happen?" queried Rod, holding his aching head. "Well, I saw the whole thing," recounted Wharton. "In fact, I guess I started it by only creasing the bull. Your horse broke through into | * prairie dog hole and turned over. Cal here had just emptied his rifle, so rode his horse right on to the bull's horns. Then the colonel arrived in a hurry and lifted that cart horse of hie right over you. I never thought he could do it. Jumped just like a hunter." "1 guess I've got to thank both of you, then," said Rod. "I don't deserve to be so well looked after ■when 1 go and run my horse into a dog colony." "Might have happened to anyone," ■aid Neill, cheerfully. "It was worth it just to see Cal take a toss. How •re the horse*, anyway?" Rod's horse, looking a little sheepish, was standing close by; he seemed none the worse for his spill. The bay had not escaped so lightly. He was standing in a hunched attitude and •eemed to have some difficulty in

breathing. Wyatt examined him carefully. "Well, it's nothing that he won't get over. A couple of ribs cracked, I think. No work for three months and he'll be right." Of the 23 buffalo lying dead on the plain, only two were considered to be too old for meat. The wagons rattled up, and all hand* set to •kinning and dressing the huge carcases. Half a dozen teams went back to the willow thicket and snaked out

4 Fitte New Serial By An Old Favourite

a load apiece of green poles for drying frames. The frames were built in the shape of a lean-to, the buffalo meat being cut in stri|>s and hung from the frame for 2t hours, with a good smoky tire burning on the ground beneath. The women tended the fires and turned the meat, while the men cut wood and tanned the hides with a pasty-mixture of wood ashes and the brains from the animals. As soon as the meat was properly dried much of it would be made into pemmican by Ix-ing broken up and wild berries added, the whole being pounded into a. firm, doughy mass which would then be shaped into slabs and dried. Towards evening of their third day in this camp a white man, accompanied by a score or so of dark, thickset redskins, rode up to the corral. He introduced himself as Alex Graham, factor for the Great West Fur Company. He explained that his company planned to establish a string of posts through the Rockies to the coast, and he was prospecting for good sites in or near good fur country.

Neill's delight at encountering a white man and a fellow Scot to boot, in country supposedly uninhabited save for bands of nomadic Indians, took the form of a pressing invitation for the factor to camp within the corral and rest up for a day or two. "I'll camp with you right gladly," answered Graham, "but I'll not be able to stay. I must reach Missouri > and be back through the Rockies be- , fore snow flies." r At Caleb's invitation the newcomer dispensed with a tepee and piled his . gear under a wagon. 1 "Ours is a bachelor outfit," exi plained the. guide, "and we can s always find room for au extra man." 1 Both Wyatt and Rod were favourii ably impressed with their companion.

About forty years of age, lie was I active and alert as a man half his age. He was pleasant and -quiet spoken, yet was every inch the hardheaded trader. That evening, when resting about their fire, (irahain gave them an interesting account of his last, voyage around the Horn and up the toast to his headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia. He described the difficulties he had experienced in securing canoes and paddlers to tnke him and his outfit up the Columbia. '"The coast Indians are fell canny about venturing inland," he explained.

At this point V.'yatt slippt'tl away on his nightly duty of posting guards. The factor continued his account. '•At the mouth of the Snake they quit me altogether and I had to hire the men and horses I have now to bring me through." "'Js that the same river that rises in the Snake Pass?" asked Rod, his iniiKl leaping hack to the night on MaiKlan Creek when Wyatt had talked of Tom Gale. '•Yes; there's a big lake up in the pass and three rivers rise thereabouts, the Snake flowing west, the Missouri r-id the Yellowstone flowing east. The Peace Pipe country where you are going lies between the latter two." "Are there any other white men living in the mountains?" questioned Pod, trying to keep the eagerness from his voice. "So; it's all Indian country right to the fort. Xot a white man. I'm wrong there. There's just one, a prospector, though I don'.t know just where he is. A friend of yours?" he queried. Rod shook his head. "I don't even know him, but I'd sure like to meet him." Graham glanced at Rod keenly. "Well, the i' -in I mean is not too savoury of reputation, either at the fort or among the Indians. He came out last fall and hung around the fort motit of the winter. He paid his way with nuggets. A closemouthed, quarrelsome man. A voya•leur, I should judge. St. Pierre, I think was the name. Yes, Pete St. Pierre." Rod was fairly quivering with excitement. Pete St. Pierre might easily be Pete le Beau. The gold might be from his father's mine. (To be continued.)