The Ferguson Rifle Read Free Page A

Only in Russia or the Sahara is there anything like it.”
    â€œThere’s the pampas, on the Argentine,” I suggested. “I’ve not been there, but it must be very like this.”
    â€œMaybe,” Ebitt said skeptically, “but I think there’s nothing like it, not anywhere. The Sahara’s desert. Well, Russia, maybe, like I said. I’ve talked with Russians and there seems to be a vastness to their land as well.”
    My mind was on other things, for by nature I am a cautious man. “How much does the Otoe understand?” I asked Talley.
    â€œNot much, I’m thinking, but you can’t tell about a redskin. They talk little when there’s a white man about, but they listen, and nobody in his right mind thinks an Indian is not quick.
    â€œHe hasn’t our education, and his upbringing isn’t Christian, but there’s nothing wrong with his senses or his wits. He’s tuned to the land, Chantry, and don’t ever forget he’s lived in this country, in this same way, for a mighty long time.”
    â€œNot on the plains,” Deg Kemble objected. “Until the Indian got the horse from the white man, he never traveled far over the grassland. He followed streams, and followed the buffalo at times, but there’s nothing to live on out here. Once the redskin got the horse, there was no holding him.”
    Davy Shanagan rode up beside us. “Chantry, I’m cuttin’ out to shoot some meat. Want to ride along?”
    We turned away from our small column and trotted our horses over the prairie, then walked them to the summit of a small knoll. We found ourselves with a surprising view of the country around.
    Within sight, but some distance off, were two herds of antelope, but no buffalo. Far and away to the westward there seemed to be a fold in the hills with some treetops showing.
    â€œThere’s game along the creeks,” Shanagan said. “The Otoe told us that. None of us ever been this far west before. There’s bear occasionally, some deer, and lots of prairie chickens.”
    We walked our horses toward the antelope but holding a course that, while bringing us nearer, seemed aimed at passing them by. At first they seemed unimpressed, but as we continued to advance one or two of them started to move. We decided to have a try at them although they were a good two hundred yards off.
    Drawing rein, I lifted the Ferguson to my shoulder, took a careful sight, then squeezed off my shot. The antelope stumbled, then broke into a run. From childhood I had learned to
think
my bullet to the target, for given a chance the eye is accurate, and I knew a deer would sometimes run a quarter of a mile with a bullet through its heart.
    The antelope raced on, running swiftly, until suddenly it crumpled, kicked, and lay still.
    Davy shot at the instant I did, and his long Kentucky rifle held true. As we rode up to our game, he got out his ramrod and prepared to reload. “Better load up, Chantry. You don’t want to be ketched with an empty rifle.”
    â€œI am loaded.”
    He glanced at me, then at the Ferguson, but made no comment. He was a better skinner than I, so while he skinned out both our kills and selected the best cuts of the meat, I kept watch from a nearby knoll.
    He was working only a few yards from me and he said, “Can’t take nothing for granted. Looks like open country but there’s hollows and coulees out yonder where you could hide an army. Just when you figure there ain’t anybody within miles, a dozen Injuns come foggin’ it out of a coulee and you’ve lost your hair.”
    My eyes were getting accustomed to the country. It is remarkable how one’s vision becomes limited to nearby objects and what we expect to see. Out here the distance was enormous, a vast sky and an endless rolling plain of grass to which the eye must adjust.
    First the mind must accept the clouds, the grass bending before the