Somewhere on before were the settlements of the Kansas frontier, out of which was creeping westward the Kansas Pacific Railroad, bound for Denver. North was the Republican Fork emigrant trail to Denver, and south was the Smoky Hill trail. With these, and with the outlying ranches and hamlets which were liable to be encountered, it did seem to Ned that by hook or crook he would be rescued if he only kept going.
Suddenly he stopped short, with lame foot upraised, and peered. He was all ready, like prairie-dog or other timid wild animal, to disappear. This was what alarmed him: the grazing herd of buffalo, resembling a great tract of black gooseberry bushes, had broken and were on the run!
As everybody in the far West knew or ought to know, running buffalo were frightened buffalo; and the question naturally would be: “Which has frightened them—white hunters or Indian hunters?” Upon the answer might depend much, even life.
Ned’s heart thumped inside his bony chest, under the thin blanket, and he glanced about for hiding-place.
The creek-bed was too far; the earth around was flat and sandy and bald; but near at hand was a curious circular hollow, like a dimple in the brown face of the prairie. Crouching and skimming, Ned darted for it, and plunged in.
This was a buffalo-wallow. In the beginning some old buffalo bull, tormented by flies, had pawed and horned and turned up the sod of a soft spot in the prairie, and there had taken a good roll. Other buffalo bulls had followed him, enlarging the hole as they enjoyed their mud-baths. Now, in late November, the wallow was dry, but it was two feet deep and fifteen feet across.
Behind the sloping edge of the wallow Ned lay close, and peeped over. He was a brave boy, but he shivered with excitement. After he had escaped, and had come so far, and was almost within touch of white people, was he to be re-captured? He couldn’t stand it—no, he couldn’t stand it, unless he had to. When they have to, people can stand a great deal.
The buffalo were increasing in size rapidly, as with their peculiar headlong rolling gallop they came thundering on. There were several thousand of them; the beat of their hoofs merged into a dull roar; over their torrent of black backs floated a yellow spume of dust.
Gazing beyond them anxiously Ned searched for the hunters. He thought that he saw them—some horsemen, veiled in the dust as they so furiously pursued. Were they white horsemen, or red? Then he saw, to his relief, that the course of the tossing herd was past his wallow, not over it. He would not be trampled to death, anyway; and perhaps he would not be seen. And then he saw that a single buffalo had separated from the flying herd, and that had paired off with it a single horseman, to ride it down. They were heading almost directly for the wallow.