He found them quite ready to trade
with him and extremely curious about his wares. They had hides upon
their tipis of a sort he had not seen before, not smooth, but covered
with curly brown fur like a big dog's. It was some time before the
Spanish trader made out what sort of animal wore such a skin, though he
knew at first sight that it must be a very large one. Finally the old
medicine man with whom he was talking began to make sketches on the
inside of one of the great robes. The Spaniard in his turn made
sketches, drawing a horse, a goat, a bear, a wolf, a bull. When he drew
the bull the old Indian got excited. He declared that that was very like
the animal they hunted, but that their bulls had great humped shoulders
like this--he added a high curved line over the back. Cabeca came to the
conclusion that it must be some sort of hunchbacked cow, but whatever it
was, the curly furry hide was comforting on cold nights. The old Indian
told him a few days after that some of the young men had just come in
with news of a herd of these great animals moving along one of their
trails, and if the white men cared to travel with them he could see them
for himself.
It did not take the trader long to make up his mind. He went with the
Indians at the slow trot which covers so many miles in a day, and sooner
than they had expected, they saw from a little rise in the ground a vast
herd of slowly moving animals which at first the white man took for
black cattle.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233