Buffalo Bill's Boy Bugler; Or, The Last of the Indian RingIngraham, Prentiss
General
Buffalo Bill's Boy Bugler; Or, The Last of the Indian Ring
Ingraham, Prentiss
Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917 -- Fiction; Dime novels
To make other incidents of this narrative clear, it is necessary to
give some little description of this home in the interior of a mountain
which any one might imagine, but few be fortunate enough to see.
To begin with, the mountain, which appeared to be a solid,
square-sided, flat-topped rock from the plain, was hollow. The great
interior cavity sank to a level with the river two miles away, and the
water in a clear pool along the edge of the south wall arose and fell
with that in the river. The whole bottom seemed made up of rich loam
and where not cultivated in vegetables, corn, herbs, and flowers, was
clothed with green and luxuriant grass.
Down here, walled in by walls many rods thick, impenetrable alike to
heat and cold, the temperature was pleasingly equable. It was never
hot, yet vegetation thrived, mostly on reflection of the sun’s rays. It
was never very cold, for the falling snow melted before it touched the
soil. There were no high winds, and blizzards and cyclones were never
felt.
On the north side of the interior was a massive pile of rocks of all
sizes, as if they had been poured there from some gigantic measure. On
these it was possible to ascend to the very top of the mountain.
The entrance was by way of what apparently had been in some other age
the bed of a river, and the small outer opening led into a crevasse
where the girl’s first disappearance had so puzzled the Indians. The
moving aside of a small rock revealed the opening, which was nearly
filled with loose stones of all sizes. Once on the inside and the key
rock in place, others could be piled upon it until it was safe from
attacks.
The girl, while a prisoner, had accidentally discovered the opening and
had explored it alone without telling even her friend, the white woman
prisoner. Later, when they had the opportunity, the woman was told and
they laid plans to escape.
Stores of provision and seed were hidden there by the child on
secret trips. Then she had conceived the plan of playing upon the
superstitions of the red people. Her ruse was successful, due almost
wholly to her sweet voice, and the fact that she had remarkable
artistic talent.
For ten years the couple had lived there, neither caring greatly to
find their way back to civilization. The woman’s entire family had
been murdered when she was made prisoner; the girl had been so young
when captured that she knew nothing of her people or their fate.
Thus they had lived on together very happily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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