The Trail Boys of the Plains; Or, The Hunt for the Big BuffaloFoster, W. Bert (Walter Bertram)
General
The Trail Boys of the Plains; Or, The Hunt for the Big Buffalo
Foster, W. Bert (Walter Bertram)
American bison -- Juvenile fiction; Mine accidents -- Juvenile fiction; West (U.S.) -- Juvenile fiction
Dig was nothing loath. He stripped Poke and brought him out with neither
saddle nor bridle. Meanly as the black horse sometimes acted, this was
not an occasion when he was likely to play the runaway.
He seemed to understand that there was a contest, and he liked to show
off just as well as did his master. The presence of the ponies made him
snort and toss his mane; and in the corral he would doubtless have tried
to bite them. But he obeyed his master’s voice and hand—even his
whistle—now, with most exemplary promptness.
Dig did not try to equal the Indian boys’ tricks; but he had others of
his own. He mounted and dismounted while Poke was on the run. He made
the mustang lie down under him and roll over, Dig standing on the horse
all the time and never once touching the ground.
He rode both kneeling and standing on the mustang’s bare back. Then he
cinched on the saddle, dropped his kerchief on the sod and picked it up
with his teeth, Poke running like a wolf meanwhile. Amoshee and his
friends hailed this last feat as the greatest and they all shook Dig by
the hand.
“Guess they think I’m some pumpkins,” Dig said to his chum. “I reckon
there isn’t anything a redskin can do that a white man can’t beat him
at.”
Of course, he said this when none of the visitors could hear him. Now
the Indian lads wanted to see Chet shoot. Probably Amoshee had told them
that young Havens excelled in that.
The Indian boys themselves had only the cheapest kind of rifles, and no
pistols at all. The chums had their revolvers, and the heavy rifle that
Chet had brought with him was almost the equal of a cannon for distance.
And the accuracy of its shooting was far superior to that of the
Indians’ guns.
So Chet pitted himself with his pistol against the rifles of Amoshee and
his friends. At distance marks the Indian boys thought they had Chet
beat; but after they had all plugged away at the target, none of them
hitting very near the centre, Chet paced ten paces back of the line from
which they had shot and came within half an inch of the bull’s-eye at
his first shot. With his remaining five bullets he riddled the target.
Then he leaped aboard Hero and showed them some fancy shots with his
horse on the run. He and Dig had practised so much in the corral at home
that Chet had really become wonderfully expert. Pistol shooting is a
matter of eye and practice. Ordinarily one must have a big target to hit
with a six-shooter.
The morning was growing old. Even the Indians began to wish to get on.
Amoshee drew Chet Havens aside and said:
“I took your advice and went to see Mr. Havens.”
“Bully for you!” exclaimed Chet. “I know my father will be glad to do
something for you, if you’ll let him.”
“But I didn’t see him, Chet,” the Indian lad said calmly.
“You didn’t see him?”
“No. He had a visitor. I stayed hidden. I knew that man.”
“Who—the man with father?”
“Yes.”
“Who was he? What did he want?” queried Chet, in wonder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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