“What a monster!” thought Bart, bringing his rifle to bear upon the massive head, with the tremendous shoulders covered with long coarse shaggy hair, while the short curved horns and great glowing eyes gave the bull so ferocious an aspect that upon first acquaintance it was quite excusable that Bart’s heart should quail and his hands tremble as he took aim, for the animal did not move.
Just then Bart remembered that Joses had warned him not to fire at the front of a bison.
“He’d carry away half-a-dozen balls, my lad, and only die miserably afterwards in the plain. What you’ve got to do is to put a bullet in a good place and bring him down at once. That’s good hunting. It saves powder and lead, makes sure of the meat, and don’t hurt the buffler half so much.”
So Bart did not fire, but sat there staring up at the bull, and the bull stood above him pawing the ground, snorting furiously, and preparing himself for a charge.
Truth must be told. If Bart had been left to himself on this his first meeting with a bison, especially as the beast looked so threatening, he would have turned and fled. But as it happened, he was not left to himself, for Black Boy did not share his rider’s tremor. He stood gazing warily up at the bull for a few moments, and then, having apparently made up his mind that there was not much cause for alarm, and that the bison was a good deal of a big bully without a great deal of bravery under his shaggy hide, he began to move slowly up the slope, taking his master with him, to Bart’s horror and consternation.
“He’ll charge at and roll us over and over down the slope,” thought Bart, as he freed his feet from the stirrups, ready to leap off and avoid being crushed beneath his nag.
Nine yards—eight yards—six yards—closer and closer, and the bison did not charge. Then so near that the monster’s eyes seemed to flame, and still nearer and nearer, with the great animal tossing its head, and making believe to lower it and tear up the earth with one horn.
“If he don’t run we must,” thought Bart, at last, as Black Boy slowly and cautiously took him up to within a yard of the shaggy beast, whose bovine breath Bart could smell now as he tossed his head.
Then, all at once, the great fellow wheeled round and thundered down the slope, while, as if enjoying the discomfiture, Black Boy made a bound, cleared the ridge, and descended the other slope at full gallop close to the bison’s heels.
All Bart’s fear went in the breeze that swept by him. He felt ready to shout with excitement, for the valley before him seemed to be alive with bison, all going along at a heavy lumbering gallop, with Joses and the Indians in full pursuit, and all as much excited as he.