SHAGGO, THE MIGHTY BUFFALO

HIS MANY ADVENTURES

BY

RICHARD BARNUM

Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant,” “Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox,” “Tamba, the Tame Tiger,” “Toto, the Bustling Beaver,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

WALTER S. ROGERS

PUBLISHERS BARSE & HOPKINS NEWARK, N. J. NEW YORK, N. Y.

KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

By Richard Barnum

Large 12mo. Illustrated.

BARSE & HOPKINS Newark, N. J. New York, N. Y.

Copyright, 1921 by Barse & Hopkins

Shaggo, the Mighty Buffalo

MADE IN U.S.A.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[7]

SHAGGO, THE MIGHTY BUFFALO

CHAPTER I SHAGGO’S QUEER BEHAVIOR

“Hey, Shaggo! come on with us.”

“Yes, trot along and let’s see who will get there first.”

Two big boy buffalo calves that had started to run over the dry, dusty prairie, their hoofs sending up little showers of dirt, stopped in front of another buffalo, much larger than either of them.

“Come on, Shaggo,” again called the buffalo who had first spoken, in animal talk, of course. “We’ll have a lot of fun.”

“Where are you going?” asked Shaggo, and as he spoke, in a deep, rumbly voice, he got up from the ground where he had been lying chewing his cud, as a cow in the meadow chews hers. And when Shaggo stood up you could see how very big he was.

[8]

Shaggo was a mighty buffalo. He was the largest and strongest of all the Government herd in the big National Park, where these animals, which once roamed the prairies in countless thousands, are now kept. For there are not now many buffaloes; not nearly so many as there were a few years ago. The Indian hunters and the white hunters killed them for food, and to get the shaggy robes the buffaloes wore. These robes were good to put over one in cold weather.

Then, too, the building of the railroads out West had scattered the buffaloes, until it seemed they must all die or be driven away. Then the Government fenced in great parks, called preserves, where the big, shaggy animals, with heads and manes larger than any lion’s that ever lived, could be at peace.

It was on one of these preserves, or ranges, in a National Park, that Shaggo lived. Though he was not the oldest buffalo of the herd he was easily the largest and strongest. He seemed to grow faster than the others, and he could easily have been the leader of the herd if he had wished. But he let another, an older bull act as the leader. Shaggo was content to eat the sweet grass, drink the cool water, and wander around in the forest or over the prairies which formed part of the park.

[9]

“Are you coming with us, Shaggo?” asked one of the two buffalo calves, as they stopped near the mighty animal.

“Where are you going?” asked Shaggo.

“Over to the wallow,” was the answer. “It is hot, and the flies and bugs are so bothersome that we’re going to roll around in the wallow and get all muddy. Come along with us and we’ll have some fun.”

“Yes, do, please, Shaggo!” urged the other buffalo. “You’re so big you can roll around and make new holes in the mud.”

“All right,” agreed Shaggo, “I’ll come. But the flies don’t bother me very much.”

The two buffaloes who had invited this biggest, mighty member of the herd to come with them, looked at each other in some surprise.

“All I’ve got to say,” finally said the smaller of the two buffaloes, who was named Soako, “is that you must be very queer if you don’t mind the biting flies.”

“Maybe Shaggo has already been to the wallow and covered himself with mud,” remarked the other buffalo, who was named Poko, because he was always playfully poking others with his short, black horns.

“No, Shaggo hasn’t been to the wallow this morning,” said Soako, with a laugh; in animal fashion, as you can easily imagine. “If he had[10] been, he’d be all covered with dried mud, and there isn’t any on him.”

“Yes, you’re right, Soako,” replied Shaggo, giving the other buffalo the name that suited him best, for Soako was always soaking himself in water whenever he could find any. “I haven’t yet been to the mud hole, but I’ll go along with you now. Though, to tell you the truth, the flies don’t bother me very much.”

“I guess Shaggo’s hide and hair are so thick that it takes the flies longer to bite through than it does with us,” said Soako, in a sort of whisper to Poko, as the three friends moved off together.

“Maybe,” agreed Poko. “Anyhow, don’t you think Shaggo is rather queer?” he went on, making sure that the mighty buffalo did not hear him. “He’s been acting in a very funny way the last week, so I heard old Wuffo say.”

“Now you speak of it, I do notice it,” said Soako. “And Wuffo ought to know, as he’s our leader. Whatever he says is right.”

Wuffo was the oldest buffalo of the herd, and one of the strongest. He had been leader for a number of years. When Shaggo grew up, and was much the larger and stronger of the two and thus might easily have made himself leader by fighting with Wuffo, Shaggo held himself back. He was content to let Wuffo remain the head of the herd.

[11]

So the three buffalo friends, shifting away from the rest of the herd, moved over the prairie end of the park toward the wallow. Soon they trotted up a little hill and came within sight of a hollow place.

“Oh, look at the lovely mud!” cried Soako. “Let’s see who will be the first in!”

“I can beat you!” bellowed Poko, and he gave a playful dig with his horns in Shaggo’s ribs.

Instead of taking it good-naturedly, as most of the buffaloes would have done, Shaggo grumbled:

“Here! What are you doing? Quit your fooling!”

“Oh, excuse me! I didn’t mean anything!” said Poko, for he knew better than to get Shaggo “mad.” More than one member of the herd had felt the strength of Shaggo’s mighty head, though the big buffalo had never done any real harm. Whenever any one plagued him, he just butted them head over heels, as a goat might do.

Down the slope ran Poko after Soako, and soon the two buffaloes were wallowing around in the mud hole. “Wallow” is just the word that tells what they did, and so the places where the buffaloes went on the prairies to get away from mosquitoes, gnats and flies came to be[12] called “wallows.” You may read about them in stories of the old West.

Over and over, and around and around in the mud rolled Soako and Poko. They sank themselves down in the deep wallow until only their nose tips stuck out, so they could breathe. They covered themselves with mud. And if their fathers or mothers could have seen them, instead of telling them to come out, the older buffaloes would have gone into the mud themselves.

For this was the only way the buffaloes had of getting rid of the biting flies. The big, shaggy animals would cover themselves with a coating of mud, and as long as this stayed on they were in comfort. The flies and mosquitoes could not bite through the dried, caked mud.

“Come on, Shaggo!” cried Soako, tumbling about in the hole which was kept wet by a nearby spring. “Hurry! The mud’s fine to-day!”

“Yes, you’re missing it!” added Poko, who was beside Soako.

“I think there’ll be enough mud left for me,” answered Shaggo easily, and he went down the slope without any signs of hurrying. Once again Soako and Poko looked at each other.

“He certainly is queer,” said Poko in a whisper.

“I should say so!” agreed Soako, pawing around on the bottom of the wallow. “I remember[13] when he was always the first in the mud. Now he doesn’t care whether he’s last or not. I wonder what is the matter with Shaggo that he acts so queerly?”

By this time the biggest buffalo of the herd was at the edge of the wallow, and the other two could not talk about him without being overheard. So they splashed about, and soon Shaggo was also covering himself with mud to keep away the flies.

But though Shaggo rolled himself around in the black sticky mud as did his friends, the mighty buffalo did not seem to be enjoying himself. He did not play tricks and jokes as he had been wont to do. He did not butt the others with his immense head, nor splash mud on them, nor roll them over so that their noses went under. He just covered himself with mud and then came out on the bank.

“You aren’t going to quit so soon, are you?” asked Poko.

“Let’s have a game of mud tag,” suggested Soako. “This is our best chance. We have the wallow to ourselves now. Pretty soon Wuffo and the other bulls will be coming here for their bath, and we’ll have to skip out. Come on, Shaggo! I’ll be it for a game of tag! Look out! I’m coming!”

Soako rushed up from the mud wallow and[14] trotted toward Shaggo. But the latter, instead of running away, as he often did, and keeping out of Soako’s way, as he easily could have done (for Shaggo was the best runner in the herd) just stood still and let Soako tag him.

“Now Shaggo is it!” bellowed Soako, running over to join Poko, who also came up out of the cool wallow.

“I’m not going to play,” said Shaggo.

“Not going to play!” echoed Poko and Soako.

“No,” went on Shaggo. “I don’t feel like playing tag. Besides, it will make the mud dry quicker and drop off, and then I’ll have to go into the wallow again.”

“Well, that’s only fun!” said Soako, and again he and Poko looked at each other. They said nothing, but they thought that Shaggo was acting very strangely indeed. Not to play tag!

“Is there any other game you’d like to play?” asked Poko, as he nibbled a bit of grass at the edge of the spring.

“No,” answered Shaggo, in a grumbling sort of voice. “All I want is to be left alone. I’m going for a walk. It’s too hot to play tag.”

It was hot, there was no denying that. But then there was the cool wallow to soak in when one was warm after running. And there was also a shady forest which was farther up the[15] National Park preserve. Soako and Poko shook their heads. They could not understand Shaggo.

“Let him go,” whispered Poko, as the big animal started off by himself.

The two friends were just going back to the wallow when, all of a sudden, along came running one of the smaller calves of the herd. He seemed much excited.

“Oh, you ought to see ’em! You ought to see ’em!” he cried, in buffalo talk, as was natural. “They’re fighting like anything.”

“Who are fighting?” asked Poko.

“Rumpo and Bumpo, the twins,” was the answer. “They’re knocking each other all over the prairie. Come on, it’s lots of fun!”

Rumpo and Bumpo were twin buffalo brothers, and they often had what the other buffaloes called “fights.” But they were only in fun, as dogs and boys wrestle to grow stronger. Rumpo and Bumpo knocked each other all over the soft grass of the prairie, but neither hurt the other. And it was always fun to see them “fight,” as it was called. Most of the other buffaloes would leave what they were doing at any time to see Rumpo and Bumpo at their game of knocking each other around.

“Did you hear that, Shaggo?” called Poko, as he and Soako prepared to follow the little calf buffalo over the prairie.

[16]

“Hear what?” asked the mighty buffalo, turning partly around.

“Rumpo and Bumpo are fighting again, in fun,” said Poko. “Come on! Let’s go and see ’em!”

“I don’t think I care to,” answered Shaggo. “I’m going off by myself.”

This time the three buffaloes looked at one another.

“He certainly is queer!” declared Soako. “This is the first time I ever knew him not to want to see Rumpo and Bumpo at play.”

“Well, come on,” said Poko, “or we’ll miss the fun!”

Then the three rushed off together toward that part of the Park from which came the sound of heavy blows and loud bellowing. Rumpo and Bumpo were having a great “fun fight.”

“Let them go,” said Shaggo to himself. “I’m tired of such nonsense! I don’t like it here any more. I wonder what’s the matter with me! I’m tired of everything! I feel very queer! I don’t know just what the matter is, but I think something is going to happen!”

[17]

CHAPTER II SHAGGO’S BIG JUMP

Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, wandered up to the top of a little hill. Down below him was the mud wallow, and he was still covered with the cool slime from its depths—slime that would keep away the bugs and mosquitoes for some time.

“At least I don’t have to worry about them,” thought the great, shaggy buffalo—the mightiest of all the herd. He looked across the prairie, which formed part of the government preserve, and could see a crowd of other shaggy animals like himself. In the midst of this throng he noticed two figures moving nimbly about.

“That’s Rumpo and Bumpo butting each other,” said Shaggo to himself. “Well, I hope they get some fun out of it. I don’t care for it any more, though.”

Time was when Shaggo would have been among the first to rush up to see two buffaloes ramming each other with their immense heads with their heavy shock of hair. In fact, Shaggo would have shouldered his way through the[18] throng to a place well up in front. But now he did not care to look on, even from a distance.

“I wonder what is the matter with me?” mused Shaggo. “I wonder what is going to happen? I don’t like it here any more, though I used to think it was the finest place in the world.”

Shaggo looked over as much of the range as he could see. It was so large, however, that he could not see it all at once. There were woods and prairies—flat lands and low lands and hills, wallows and “salt licks.” These last were places where salt cropped up out of the ground, and at certain seasons buffaloes, deer, elks and antelopes came to these places to lick the ground with their tongues to get the taste of salt. Salt is good for some wild animals, such as buffaloes. You may have seen, on a farm, how the cows and sheep are sometimes given salt. Often a lump of rock salt is put in the manger of a horse, for a little salt is good for horses also.

As Shaggo looked over the buffalo preserve and saw the sun shining on a part of the fence that was all around it, a new thought came into his head. He sniffed the air, pawed the ground, sending up a little cloud of dry dust, and then he said to himself:

“I know what the matter is! This place is[19] too small for me! It isn’t large enough! I’m tired of being fenced in!”

For there was a wire fence, many miles long, all around the Park. The fence had to be there to keep the buffaloes from wandering away, and to keep out bad white men and Indians, who might have come in to take away or to shoot the buffaloes. Of course the men could have crawled under, jumped over, or have cut the fence, but the wire being there told these men that the Government wanted them to stay out, and the men knew the Government would punish them if they did any harm to the herd of big animals.

“Yes, this place isn’t large enough,” decided the mighty buffalo. “I have heard stories, told by Wuffo, of his grandfather and their friends. They never had to stay cooped up in a park with a fence all around it. They could run and roam as they pleased. I don’t see why I can’t! I’m going to! That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to run away!”

However, it was one thing for a buffalo to make up his mind he was going to run away from the Government Park, but it was quite another thing to do it. All around the range, or National Park, was this strong, high fence of wire. The men who put it up knew they must[20] needs make it extra strong on account of the big buffaloes, who are stronger and larger than any bull of the farm pasture.

Shaggo knew about the fence. More than once, in the dark, he had bumped against it, and more than once, on the sly, he and some other buffalo calves had tried to break through it.

“But it can’t be broken,” said Shaggo, after he had tried several times, with his companions.

“No,” agreed Poko, “I don’t believe it can. Anyhow, who wants to break it? This place suits me.”

“And me, too,” said Soako and the others.

It had suited Shaggo, too, until this past week, when, somehow or other, he had become discontented.

“And so I’m going to run away,” he decided. “I’ll get over or through the fence, somehow, and see what’s on the other side.”

Shaggo, like many of the other buffaloes, had never been outside the fence. Shaggo had been born inside, and had never been allowed to go out.

“But I’m going now,” he told himself, as he walked down the hill and over toward the others of the herd. By this time the “fun fight” between Rumpo and Bumpo was over. Bumpo had won, having knocked down Rumpo more times than Rumpo had knocked him down.

[21]

[22- 23]

“Oh, Shaggo, you should have seen it!” bellowed Poko, as he ran up alongside of the big buffalo.

“Yes, you surely missed it!” echoed Soako. “It was a great fun fight.”

“I guess I didn’t miss much,” replied Shaggo. “I had a good time off by myself.”

“Humph! That’s the first time I ever knew anybody could have a good time alone, unless he was eating or rolling in the mud,” said Poko in a low voice to Soako.

“That’s right,” agreed the other. “Shaggo’s getting more and more queer.”

And if these two buffalo friends could have known what Shaggo had made up his mind to do—that is, run away—they would have been more surprised than ever.

Once Shaggo had found out what made him discontented—that the Park was not big enough for him—he began to look about for a way of getting out of it. For several days he wandered around with the rest of the herd, eating the grass here and there, drinking from the different springs, going to the shade of the trees when the sun was too hot, or rolling in the mud when the flies bit too hard.

And, all this while, Shaggo was looking for a hole in the fence. But he found none, and he was beginning to be discouraged.

[24]

“I wonder if I’ll get out?” he said to himself.

One day Shaggo separated himself from the rest of the herd. He could do this easily, as, of late, he had not been very friendly, and the others had come to let him alone.

“Shaggo is a bit cross and grouchy,” said Wuffo. “Just let him alone until that spell wears off. Then he’ll be his same jolly old self again.”

So when Shaggo wandered off alone, no one paid any attention to him. Shaggo went up on top of a hill. From there he looked down and saw the shiny wire fence that kept him from leaving the preserve.

A new idea came into Shaggo’s head. He looked at the fence and at a thick clump of bushes and small trees that grew on the other side. The fence was quite a distance below him.

“I believe I can do it!” cried Shaggo aloud to himself. He was quite excited. “I believe if I took a run and gave a jump, I could leap down from the top of this hill, over the fence and so down into the soft bushes. It wouldn’t hurt me much, and I would be over the fence. Then I’d be out! I’d be free and could roam where I pleased! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll give a big jump down from this hill, over the fence and get away!”

The more Shaggo thought of this idea the[25] better he liked it. He looked behind him. There was the rest of the herd calmly eating, chewing cud or wallowing in the mud. Rumpo and Bumpo were again at their butting fun fight game.

“None of that for me!” said Shaggo. “I’m going to run away, jump the fence, and see the world. Good-bye, my buffalo friends!” he said, though he was so far away the others could not hear him.

Shaggo did not have anything to pack to take away with him. He carried his hump, or pack, on his big shoulders. Once more looking back toward his friends and companions, Shaggo shook his head and pawed the dirt, stamping his hoofs on the top of the hill.

“Here I go!” he said at last. He walked back a little way, and then broke into a run. As he neared the edge of the hill Shaggo gave a big jump, and launched himself outward and downward.