they went south.
'I like a town,' Lippy added. 'It don't have to be St. Louis, just a town. As long as it has a saloon or two I can get by. But I wasn't meant to live out in the open during the winter.'
Call knew the men were wondering, but he wasn't ready to stop. Jake had said some of the most beautiful land was far to the north, near Canada. It would be a pity to stop and make a choice before they had looked around thoroughly.
He contemplated leaving the men and going on a long look around himself, north of Yellowstone, but decided against it, mainly because of Indians. Things looked peaceful, but that didn't mean they would stay peaceful. There could easily be a bad fight, and he didn't want to be gone if one came.
Finally he decided to send Augustus. 'I hate to give you the first look, but somebody's got to look,' he said. 'Would you want to go?'
'Oh, sure,' Augustus said. 'I'd be happy to get away from all this tedious conversation. Maybe I'll trot through this Miles City community and see if anyone stocks champagne.'
'Take the look around first, if you can be bothered,' Call said. 'I doubt the main street of Miles Cty would make a good ranch, and I doubt you'll get any farther, once you spot a saloon. We need to find a place and get some shelters built before winter hits. Take a man with you, in case you get into trouble,' Call suggested.
'I can get myself out of trouble,' Augustus said. 'But if I have to lead some quaking spirit like Jasper Fant it'll slow me down. None of these cowpokes is exactly wilderness hands. We buried the last reliable man down on the Powder, remember?'
'I remember,' Call said.
'You don't want to make too many mistakes in this part of the country,' Augustus said. 'You'll end up bearshit.'
'Take Pea,' Call said. 'Pea can follow orders.'
'Yes, that's what he can do,' Augustus said. 'I guess I'll take him, though he won't provide much conversation.'
Pea Eye was not enthusiastic about going on a scout with Gus, but since the Captain told him to, he tied his bedroll on his saddle and got ready. Other than securing his bedroll, his preparations consisted mainly of sharpening his knife. One thing Pea Eye firmly believed was that it was foolish to start on a trip without a sharp knife. Inevitably on a trip there were things that needed cutting or skinning or trimming. Once his knife was sharp, Pea Eye was ready, more or less. He knew he wouldn't get much relaxation on the trip because he was traveling with Gus, and Gus talked all the time. It was hard to relax when he had to be constantly listening. Besides, Gus was always asking questions which were hard to understand, much less answer.
It was a breezy morning when they started out-a dark cloud bank had formed in the northwest, and the men were talking of snow.
'I said way back in Lonesome Dove we'd be crossing the dern Yellowstone on the ice if we didn't get started,' Jasper reminded them. 'Now all this time has passed, and I may be right.'
'Even if you was right, you'd be wrong, Jasper,' Augustus said, as he stuffed an extra box or two of ammunition into his saddlebags.
'I'd like to know why, Gus,' Jasper said, annoyed that Gus was always singling him out for criticism.
'I'll explain it when I get back,' Augustus said. 'Come on, Pea, let's go see if we can find Canada.'
They loped off, watched by the whole camp. The crew had been made melancholy by the approaching clouds. Po Campo had wandered off looking for roots.
Augustus and Pea Eye passed him nearly a mile from camp. 'Po, you're a rambler,' Augustus said. 'What do you expect to find on this old plain?'
'Wild onions,' Po Campo said. 'I'd like an onion.'
'I'd like a jug of bourbon whiskey, myself,' Augustus said. 'I wonder which one of us will get his wish.'
'
A day and a half later the two scouts rode over a grassy bluff and saw the Yellowstone River, a few miles away. Fifty or sixty buffalo were watering when they rode up. At the sight of the horsemen the buffalo scattered. The cloud bank had blown away and the blue sky was clear for as far as one could see. The river was swift but not deep-Augustus paused in his crossing and leaned down, drinking from his cupped hands. The water was cold.
'Sweet water, but it don't compare with bourbon whiskey,' he said.
'Jasper won't need them floats,' Pea Eye remarked.
'He might,' Augustus said. 'He might fall off his horse if he gets real nervous. Let's chase the buffalo for a while.'
'Why?' Pea asked. Po Campo had packed them plenty of meat. He couldn't imagine why Gus would bother with buffalo. They were cumbersome to skin, and he and Gus had no need for so much meat.
Nonetheless, it was follow or be left, for Augustus had loped off after the buffalo, who had only run about a mile. He soon put them to flight again and raced along beside them, riding close to the herd. Pea Eye, caught by surprise, was left far behind in the race. He kept expecting to hear Gus's big rifle, but he didn't, and after a run of about two miles came upon Gus sitting peacefully on a little rise. The buffalo were still running, two or three miles ahead.
'Kill any?' Pea asked.
'No, I wasn't hunting,' Augustus said.
'Did you just want to run 'em off, or what?' Pea asked. As usual, Gus's behavior was a complete puzzle.
'Pea, you ain't got your grip on the point,' Augustus said. 'I just wanted to chase a buffalo once more. I won't have the chance much longer, and nobody else will either, because there won't be no buffalo to chase. It's a grand sport too.'
'Them bulls can hook you,' Pea Eye reminded him. 'Remember old Barlow? A buffalo bull hooked his horse and the horse fell on Barlow and broke his hip.'
'Barlow was a slow thinker,' Augustus observed. 'He just loped along and got hooked.'
'A slow walker, too, once his hip got broke,' Pea Eye said. 'I wonder what happened to Barlow.'
'I think he migrated to Seguin, or somewhere over in there,' Augustus said. 'Married a fat widow and had a passel of offspring. You ought to have done the same, but here you are in Montana.'
'Well, I'd hate not to be a bachelor,' Pea Eye said.
'Just because it's all you know don't mean it's all you'd enjoy,' Augustus said. 'You had a chance at a fine widow right there in Lonesome Dove, as I recall.'
Pea Eye was sorry the subject of widows had come up. He had nearly forgotten the Widow Cole and the day he had helped her take the washing off the line. He didn't know why he hadn't forgotten it completely-he surely had forgotten more important things. Yet there it was, and from time to time it shoved into his brain. If he had married some widow his brain would probably have been so full of such things that he would have no time to think, or even to keep his knife sharp.
'Ever meet any of the mountain men?' Augustus asked. 'They got up in here and took the beavers.'
'Well, I met old Kit,' Pea Eye said. 'You ought to remember. You was there.'
'Yes, I remember,' Augustus said. 'I never thought much of Kit Carson.'
'Why, what was wrong with Kit Carson?' Pea Eye asked. 'They say he could track anything.'
'Kit was vain,' Augustus said. 'I won't tolerate vanity in a man, though I will in a woman. If I had gone north in my youth I might have got to be a mountain man, but I took to riverboating instead. The whores on them riverboats in my day barely wore enough clothes to pad a crutch.'
As they rode north they saw more buffalo, mostly small bunches of twenty or thirty. The third day north of the Yellowstone they killed a crippled buffalo calf and dined on its liver. In the morning, when they left, there were a number of buzzards and two or three prairie wolves hanging around, waiting for them to leave the carcass.
It was a beautiful morning, crisp for an hour or two and then sunny and warm. The country rolled on to the north, as it had for thousands of miles, brown in the distance, the prairie grass waving in the breeze.
'Lord, how much land does the Captain want?' Pea Eye asked. 'Looks like this country around here would be good enough for anybody.'
'Plenty would settle for it, you're right,' Augustus said. 'Call might himself. But let's just go on for a day or two more. We ain't struck the Milk River yet.'
'Does it run milk?' Pea Eye asked.
