57o 



RECREATION 



A BUFFALO HUNT 

 BY MRS. W. V. TOMPKINS. 



Down in my Southern home, spring had 

 fully come. The mockingbirds made pas- 

 sionate love to each other, and the magno- 

 lias lifted their white cups filled with per- 

 fume. From tangled woodland coverts, shad- 

 owed and cool with brake and fern, came the 

 faint fragrance of earfy, coyly blooming vio- 

 lets. The faint silver stars of the dogwood 

 paled in the deeper, darker thickets, and the 

 glow-worms lighted their fluttering, golden 

 lamps. But here in the far Northwest, win- 

 ter still reigned undisturbed. The wind had 

 more than a suspicion of frost in it still, and 

 the mountains had barely doffed their cloaks 

 of white. The snow still clung to the foot- 

 hills and the stunted junipers on the lake 

 shore cowered and whimpered peevishly in 

 the twilight, when the sun had gone down and 

 the breeze from the lake strengthened a little. 



Our little party was camping on the eastern 

 shore of Flathead lake, and it was almost 

 June. Our campfire glowed brightly in the 

 shelter of the juniper-fringed shore, and I 

 think that we were all just a little tired. No 

 one had much to say. I had ventured to 

 broach more than one subject, but my ef- 

 forts were not very well received, and even I 

 became a little discouraged and fell silent. 

 The child in my arms slipped sleepily down 

 upon the rug beside me and laid his head 

 upon my knee, while my small daughter^ her 

 blue eyes wide, listened, with horror depicted 

 in every feature, to the call of an owl hard by. 



Truth to tell, it was past the children's- 

 bedtime. I felt this guiltily, but my tent was 

 so far from the circle of light thrown by the 

 blazing logs, and the shadows of the junipers 

 were so forbidding that I feverishly post- 

 poned leaving the comfort and warmth for 

 the gloom out there in the darkness. And I 

 knew so well how it would be. Just as soon 

 as the restraint of the women's presence was 

 withdrawn the men would rouse to activity 

 Fresh logs would be thrown upon the blazing 

 campfire and one more pipe would be lighted 

 while they reminded each other reminiscently 

 of that fish that got away or that time back 

 in the East 



Our camp was upon the Indian reservation, 

 and during the day group after group of ill- 

 smelling bucks and unkempt squaws would 

 loiter in the sunshine about the tents and 

 beg for bits of broken food or scraps of to- 

 bacco. Not Cooper's Indians. Far from it ! 

 I cared not a straw for them while the sun 

 shone ; no more than for the coyotes that 

 howled from the foothills just out of sight 

 and drove the dog to the verge of madness. 

 But at night — well, things are different. 



"Would you like to go on a buffalo hunt, 

 Mrs. Temple ?" 



I looked up quickfy. 



"The buffaloes are almost extinct," I said 

 guardedly. "On the plains where once 

 roved " 



My husband sniffed. 



"Don't you think that the children should 

 be in bed, Helen?" he asked suspiciously. 



"Are you going to bed?" 



"Well, not just yet. I thought " 



"What about the buffaloes, Mr. Wood?" I 

 asked politely but hurriedly. The conversa- 

 tion was by way of taking a turn which I did 

 not like. 



"I was not jesting," he said quickly. "The 

 Allard herd of which we have talked so often 

 were wintered on the island which you see 

 out there, and when an attempt was made to 

 remove them early in the spring two of the 

 bulls turned ugly and had to be left behind. 

 A rich haul for the pot-hunters if they only 

 knew it. We might look them up to-morrow 

 if you like." 



I looked away and beyond the failing fire- 

 light to the full moon just rising behind the 

 evergreen-fringed shoulder of an island far 

 out in the lake. So engrossed was I that the 

 child upon my knee slipped from my hold 

 and whimpered fretfully. My husband rose. 



"I will take him to the tent for you," he 

 said as he lifted him in his arms. "Come 

 with father, Ethel." 



So I made a virtue of necessity and fol- 

 lowed him a little unwillingly, and the pleas- 

 ant little group about the camp fire dissolved. 



The next morning my liege lord made one 

 of his periodical visits to the nearest settle- 

 ment fifty miles away, just as we stepped into 

 the little boat en route for the island. 



A more beautiful scene than that presented 

 by Flathead Lake as it rippled in the morn- 

 ing sunshine one would go far to find. The 

 sky was a faint, sapphire blue and little wisps 

 of clouds like tangled threads of wool floated 

 now and then across it. A drift of paler 

 green marked the current of the swollen 

 brook that sobbed hoarsely as it emptied into 

 the lake at its northern extremity, where the 

 willow fringe budded into color, and a loon 

 laughed hysterically and dived in the shadow 

 of the island. 



Now I hadn't the faintest desire to hunt 

 for buffalo. In the first place, I hadn't lost 

 any myself and I had no right to assume that 

 Mr. Allard cared to employ me in the ca- 

 pacity of buffalo herder. But I dared not 

 confess to being afraid. So I clung frenziedly 

 to Ethel's mop of yellow hair and lagged be- 

 hind as we toiled through tangles of brake 

 and fireweed and struggled for a scanty foot- 

 hold on the drift of outcropping shale that 

 marked out path and impeded our prog- 

 ress. 



"Don't make so much noise, please!" said 

 our guide, looking back irritably. "It is bad 

 enough to have women and children along. 



