CHAPTER IIISHAGGO IN A HOLE
Down, down, down through the air sailed Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, after he had leaped from the cliff over the strong wire fence. He looked toward the ground, to make sure he would not land on the fence itself.
“For if I did that,” thought Shaggo, “my legs would get all tangled up, and then I could never run away and find a big place in which to roam. No, indeed! I don’t want anything like that to happen.”
So he was glad when he saw that he was going to land on the other side of the fence. Once more he looked down. The earth seemed rushing up to meet him, but of course he was only falling down to land on it.
“I’m going to fall into that clump of bushes, just as I thought I should,” said the buffalo to himself.
A moment later he had crashed into the midst of a tangle of green leaves and branches. Into the midst of the bushes fell the mighty Shaggo. Down through them he went, breaking twigsand limbs of small trees, for Shaggo was very heavy.
And in another instant Shaggo fell with a loud thud and a thump. He fell on one side, landing on one of his front shoulders, and at once a terrible pain shot all through his body. It was a much worse pain than he had ever before felt, even when Wuffo, the oldest buffalo of all the herd, had once butted Shaggo head over heels when Shaggo had done something wrong. And it was a much worse pain than any Shaggo had felt when Poko had shoved him with the short, black horns that all buffaloes wear.
“Dear me, this is terrible!” thought Shaggo to himself, in the way buffaloes have of thinking. “I wonder what I have fallen on.”
But he suddenly lost all power of thinking, for his senses seemed to leave him, and all he knew was that he had fallen into a place that was very, very dark and lonesome.
The fact was that Shaggo had fallen so hard that, for a while, he was knocked senseless. If you have ever tumbled downstairs and have bumped your head very hard, you perhaps know how it feels to lose your senses. You seem to go to sleep before it is bedtime. Well, this is what happened to Shaggo. He didn’t know what happened after he had jumped and felt thatsharp pain in his shoulder, except that it grew very dark.
It was a real darkness, too, besides the dark that came when Shaggo closed his eyes. The mighty buffalo was so strong that even his heavy fall did not make him senseless very long. In a little while he opened his eyes again. He could still feel the pain in his shoulder, but what surprised him more than anything else was the darkness that was all about him.
“This is very queer,” said Shaggo to himself. “When I started to run away from our buffalo range it was daylight. That could not have been so very long ago, yet it is now as dark as night. I wonder if I could have been here all that while. Guess I’ll move about and see what the matter is.”
Shaggo shook himself, thereby rousing himself and getting wider awake from his queer sleep. He managed to scramble to his feet, but no sooner had he done so than the pain in his shoulder grew sharper.
“Why—why!” exclaimed Shaggo, “I can hardly move. Ouch! Oh my, this is terrible! I hope my leg isn’t broken!”
Shaggo knew what it was for a buffalo to have a broken leg. They hardly ever lived to get over it, and he did not want anything like that to happen.
So Shaggo moved each one of his four legs very carefully to see if any of them was broken. But though his front left leg was very painful up near his shoulder, it did not seem to be broken. But, oh, how it hurt to move it!
“And yet I have to move it if I’m ever going to get out of this place,” thought Shaggo. “Where am I, anyhow? It’s very dark, and yet I’m sure it isn’t night. It doesn’t smell like night.”
Buffaloes, and other animals, are not like boys and girls. Animals can tell many things by merely smelling, where we have to see things to know what they are. And Shaggo could tell when it was daylight or night by smelling. And though now, to his eyesight, it was dark all around him, somehow or other he felt sure it was not the darkness of night.
“And if it isn’t night, then I must be in some sort of cave or hole,” thought the mighty buffalo.
He knew what caves were, for on the buffalo range in the National Park were some of these holes in the ground, where the big animals went in to stay during the cold winter.
“Well, I’d better try to get out of here,” thought Shaggo. He wished he might have some of his buffalo friends to whom to talk, but that was out of the question. And Shaggo did not wish them the bad luck of wanting them tobe with him in his trouble. Yet, all the same, he would have been glad to have seen even Rumpo and Bumpo now at their game of bumping one another. But Shaggo, in a fit of temper, had run off by himself, and now he must get out of his trouble as best he could.
“And I surely am in trouble,” thought poor Shaggo. “Oh, wow! What a pain!”
He moved about a little in the darkness, and then he had to stand still, for his leg hurt him so much. But Shaggo knew he could not stay in the place into which he had fallen. The more he thought about it the more he felt sure he had fallen into a pit.
“But I must see what sort of a place it is into which I have fallen,” thought the mighty buffalo. His eyes were getting used to the darkness now, and he could see a little. He noticed that he was down in a sort of big hole. The bottom and sides were of earth, and Shaggo dug his hoofs in as he had done on the soft prairie.
Slowly Shaggo walked around the pit. In most places the sides were too steep for him to climb up. They were like the sides of a well, straight up and down. But in one place there was a slope like that of a hill, only it was a very steep hill.
“Now if there were only some rocks, like steps, in this hill I might get up,” thoughtShaggo. “I wonder if I could dig some steps with my horns. I’ll try it.”
There was a little more light on this side of the cave, and Shaggo could see to try to get up. He lowered his shaggy head, and with his short, strong horns, dug out a little of the soft earth, hoping to make some steps for himself. But as he moved his head from side to side, to use his horns, the pain in his hurt shoulder was so sharp that again he cried:
“Ouch!”
“This will never do!” said Shaggo to himself, as he stopped trying to dig the steps. “I’ll never be able to get out this way. I must find another path.”
He backed away from the spot where he had been trying to dig and again slowly wandered about the hole. It was a much larger place than he had at first thought, and as he slowly moved toward one end he saw that the light was stronger.
“Maybe that’s a place where I can get out,” cried poor Shaggo. “I hope it is! I’m not having very much fun so far!”
His shoulder was so painful that he could not run, as he wanted to. But he managed to get nearer the place of the light, and then, to his surprise, he saw an easy slope of earth leading up into what seemed to be a large cave.
“Maybe this is the cave where a lot of us buffaloes stayed last winter,” thought Shaggo. “If it is I’m all right—though I would still be back on the range. No, I don’t see how this could be that cave—that was inside the wire fence, and I surely jumped outside. Besides, I don’t smell any buffalo smell, as I would if any of my friends had been in this cave. It must be another.”
And it was, as Shaggo found a little later. The pit, into which he had jumped through the bushes, was joined to a big cave under the mountain, and by walking up a little hill of dirt, Shaggo was soon in the cave. It was much larger than the pit, and lighter, too, and Shaggo was glad of this.
“Now maybe I can find something to eat and drink,” thought the mighty buffalo. “But, most of all, I want something to drink.”
So, making his way to the cave, Shaggo sniffed and smelled.
He wandered on and on in the big cave, which was getting lighter and lighter. All of a sudden Shaggo stopped, lifted his head and sniffed deeply.
“I smell water!” he bellowed aloud, he was so excited.
He started to run, but his shoulder hurt himso he had to slow down. Then there came to his ears a musical gurgle.
“I hear water, too!” he said. “Now I can get a drink!”
He turned around a corner of rock and a moment later he saw a pool of shining water in the cave.
“Oh, how good that looks!” cried Shaggo. “And how good it will taste!”
He made his way to the edge of the pool, but just as he was leaning over to drink something very surprising happened. Up in the middle of the pool shot a steaming hot column of water. It boiled, bubbled, and hissed, and was so hot that Shaggo sprang back in alarm, uttering a loud “wuff!”
“My! what’s this? What have I struck now?” thought the shaggy buffalo.