A suitable place was selected for the camp, down in a well-sheltered hollow, where a fire was lit, and some bison-meat placed upon sticks to roast. The missing Indians seemed to be attracted by the odour, for just as it was done they all came straight up to camp ready to make a hearty meal, in which their white companions were in no wise behind hand.
“Not bad stuff,” said Joses, after a long space, during which he had been too busy to speak.
“I never ate anything so delicious,” replied Bart, who, upon his side, was beginning to feel as if he had had enough.
“Ah, there’s worse things than roast buffler hump,” said Joses; “and now, my lad, if I was you I’d take as big and as long a sleep as I could, for we must be off again before daylight after the herd.”
“Shall we catch up to them again, Joses?” asked Bart.
“Catch up to ’em? why, of course, they haven’t gone far.”
A quarter of an hour later Bart was fast asleep, dreaming that he was hunting a bull bison ten times as big as the one he had that afternoon shot, and that after hunting it for hours it suddenly turned round and began to hunt him, till he became so tired that he lay down and went off fast asleep, when, to his great disgust, when he was so weary, Joses came and began to shake him by the shoulder, saying:
“Come, Master Bart, lad, wake up. The buffer’s been coming close in to camp during the night.”