What would I advise? Even the female buffaloe will
fight for her young!"
"It never then shall be said, that Ishmael Bush has less kindness for
his children than the bear for her cubs!"
"And yet this is but a naked spot for a dozen men to make head in,
ag'in five hundred."
"Ay, it is so," returned the squatter, glancing his eye towards his
humble camp; "but something might be done, with the wagons and the
cotton-wood."
The trapper shook his head incredulously, and pointed across the
rolling plain in the direction of the west, as he answered--
"A rifle would send a bullet from these hills into your very
sleeping-cabins; nay, arrows from the thicket in your rear would keep
you all burrowed, like so many prairie dogs: it wouldn't do, it
wouldn't do. Three long miles from this spot is a place, where as I
have often thought in passing across the desert, a stand might be made
for days and weeks together, if there were hearts and hands ready to
engage in the bloody work."
Another low, deriding laugh passed among the young men, announcing, in
a manner sufficiently intelligible, their readiness to undertake a
task even more arduous.
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