Vengeance Trail by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2020-11-13T23:00:00+00:00

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23. — THE CHEYENNE

THE prairie had changed, in the estimation of the boy. It had become, instead of a green desert, a great and wonderful playground, filled with adventure. Though his companion talked very little, the sternness of his manner had relaxed. It seemed that he had looked upon himself as a schoolmaster who had to be somewhat grim if he expected that the lessons would be learned. As though to celebrate the initiation of Johnnie Tanner through the killing of the first buffalo, Hank Raney suggested that they should camp for some time in that place where they had found the brush. After the steady traveling all the horses, except the indomitable black, needed a rest. Besides, they had here water from a little meandering stream that ran close by, the brush gave shelter and plenty of firewood, and in every respect the place was, in the eye of Hank Raney, an ideal site.

So they maintained the camp, and every day they went out hunting. They were always in luck now. The long famine was distinctly and suddenly ended. The very first morning, they had not gone two miles from the camp before they saw the flashing disks of antelope on the green breast of the prairie.

The antelope were off at a speed which no horse could follow. But the two hunters made a long detour down wind, and came up in the middle of the day with the herd. Then, leaving their horses at a distance, they wormed their way through the grass, often on hands and knees, taking advantage of random depressions, until they came close enough to the herd to open fire.

Never would Johnnie Tanner forget the moment when he parted the thick tufts of the grass and saw before him, not thirty feet away, a fine little pronghorn buck with his head raised, his big eyes flashing, his whole body tense with alertness and ready to leap off at full speed.

A tremor ran through the hand of John Tanner. His rifle shook as he raised it, and then, glancing confusedly down the sights, he saw others of the herd scattered here and there, standing knee-deep in the rich grass. At the same moment, the tail disk of one of them in the near distance flashed like a metal sheet in the sun, and in an instant the whole herd was in motion.

They started like jack rabbits, with a suddenness which took the breath, so that the fine buck which had been standing near him fairly jerked itself out of the circle of the sights at the first bound. He caught it again. And then that feeling of savage certainty came over him once more, exactly as he had felt it the day before in shooting at the buffalo cow. He caught that little racing streak in the sights, he followed the course over a small arc, and then fired.

The antelope fell, spinning over and over in the long grass, then disappearing into it. The boy hardly watched the fall.

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