Asheville daily citizen., 1892-03-21

ana as ne increases or slacKens Jne pace we
follow suit.
The entrance of the pass at lastl It is
roadway-a gully twenty feet wide, sep
arating two long and barren hills. 1t is
FIVE miles long, and the edges Of the hills
have been cut by storms until they are
bluffs, up which only an active man can
Chamber. Here and there great bowlder
has dropped down-here and there tons of
earth have fallen and raised the natural
bed foot or more Beyond the pass the
Indians will make another squirt, and we
shall have to increase the pace. An hour
more will settle the matter
There has been no shouting for the last
hour. AS the corporal turns his face after
look over his shoulder we read the news
as from printed page. They still hang
to the trail, of course. 1t would be folly to
expect they had given over the pursuit.
They have even gained little. AS we
enter the pass you might figure it one
chance in sixty. Half way through you
can make it one In s. venty. Terrible odds,
you say, but we WEI even grateful. Now
we hear for the first time the echo of their
ponies feet, and it is plain enough that
they are gaining, Every buck utters
long drawn yell, and the impulse is to in
crease the pace. A look from the corporal
checks this, and after a minute the heart
beats regularly again.
| What's that9 We are within half mile
of the end of the pass when black object
suddenly appears ahead. More Indians?
Caught in trap2 Almost as speedily as
we can ask ourselves the questions buf
falo bull. head down and tail up, rushes
past us ON the left hand, and he is followed
by another and another. Without word
we check up and fall in behind the cor
poral single file, and he increases the pace.
We seem-to fly over the last hundred rods,
hugging close to the right hand bank, and
we are only clear of the pass when 1t is
choked with affrighted animals. But for
the great rocks few yards to the right
we should have been picked up in that
rush. A halt of thirty seconds would have
been our doom. From right to left-from
the pass as far to the east and south rs the
eye could discern-was a solid mass OF
stampeding buffaloes. The clatter of their
horns was deafening; the tramp of the
thousands of hoofs made the earth tremble.
AS the rush contracted at the pass hun
dreds of animals went down to be literally
trodden into the EARTH while scores of
others were lifted up by the squeeze until
they were carried along as chips on the
surface of a rushing river.
BY and by there was rampant Of dead
and dying so high that it could not be
jumped over or broken through, and the
stampede bore off to the right. At the end
of two hours the last animal able to move
had passed out of sight and we drove
ahead for the camp on the Loup. Next
day we rode through the pass again, this
time ut a walk. There were dead butfa
loes, savage old bulls with broken legs
patches of hair and blood and bones at in
tervals, scores of horns knocked off and
flung into the banks like so many spears.
Had the Indians escapsdS Never a one
They had not caught the alarm as soon as
we did, and seconds were minutes there
To go back was the only choice left them
but that meant a ride of four miles and q
half before a stampede. Every pony hat
gone down; every rider had been tossed
and trampled and flung about until yor
could hardly believe that those objects hat
,, once been human beings, M. QUAD.