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Show 162 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL, Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune and shuffle a dance on his stumps of feet. 'You'll see us, before long, passing up your way,' said the other man. 'Well,' said I, 'stop and take a cup of coffee with us;' and as it was quite late in the afternoon, I prepared to leave the fort at once. As I rode out, a train of emigrant wagons was passmg across the stream. ' Whar are ye goin', stranger ?' Thus · I was saluted by two or three voices at once. 'About eighteen miles up the creek.' ' It's mighty late to be going that far ! Make haste, ye'd better, and keep a bright look-out for Indians !' I thought the advice too good to be neglected. Fording the stream, I passed at a round trot over the plains beyond. But ' the more haste, the worse speed.' I proved the truth of the proverb by the time I reached the hills three miles from the fort. The trail was faintly marked, and riding forward with more rapidity than caution, I lost sight of it. I kept on in a direct line guided by Laramie Creek, which I could see at intervals darkly glistening in the evening sun, at the bottom of the woody gulf on my right. Half an hour before sunset I came upon its banks. There was something exciting in the wild solitude of the place. An antelope sprang suddenly from the sage-bushes before me. As he leaped gracefully not .thirty yards before my horse, I fired, and instantly he spun round and fell. Quite sure of him, I walked my horse toward him, 1eisurly re load· "fl h - mg my n e, w en to my surprise he sprang up and trotted rapidly a way on three legs into the dark recesses of the_ hills, whither I ·had no time to follow. Ten minutes THE WAR PARTIES. 163 after, I was passing along the bottom of a deep valley, and chancing to look behind me, I saw in the dim light that something was following. Supposing it to be a wolf, I slid fi·om my seat and sat down behind my horse to shoot it ; but as it came up, I saw by its motions that it was another antelope. It approached within a hundred yards, arched its graceful neck, and gazed intently. I levelled at the white spot on its chest, and was about to fire, when it started off, ran first to one side and then to the other, like a vessel tacking against a wind, and at last stretched away at full speed. Then it stopped again, looked curiously behind it, and trotted up as before; but not so boldly, for it soon paused and stood gazing at me. I fired; it leaped upward and fell upon its tracks. Measuring the distance, I found it two hundred and four paces. \Vhen I stood by his side, the antelope turned his expiring eye upward. It was like a beautiful woman's, dark and rich. ' Fortunate that I am in a hurry,' thought I; 'I might be troubled with remorse, if I had time for it.' Cutting the animal up, not in the most skilful manner, I hung the meat at the back of my saddle, and rode on again. The hills (I could not remember one of them) closed around me. 'It is too late,' thought I, 'to go forward. I will stay here to-night, and look for the path in the morning.' As a last effort, however, I ascended a high hill, from which, to my great satisfaction, I could see Laramie Creek stretching before me, twisting from side to side amid ragged patches of timber; and far off, close beneath the shadows of the trees, the ruins of the old trading-fort were visible. I reached them at twilight. It was far from pleasant, in that uncertain light, to be pushing through the dense trees and shrubbery of the grove beyond. |