Three shots were fired.
The three leading buffaloes fell and rolled in the agonies of death.
"We are lost!" Tranquil said, coldly.
The buffaloes still advanced.
But soon the heat became insupportable; the smoke, driven in the direction of the manada by the wind, blinded the animals; then a reaction was effected; there was a delay, soon followed by a recoil.
The hunters, with panting breasts, followed anxiously the strange interludes of this terrible scene. A question of life or death for them was being decided at this moment, and their existence only hung on a thread.
In the meanwhile the mass still pushed onward. The animals that led the manada could not resist the pressure of those that followed them; they were thrown down and trampled underfoot by the rear, but the latter, assailed in their turn by the heat, also tried to turn back. At this moment some of the buffaloes diverged to the right and left; this was enough, the others followed them: two currents were established on either side the fire, and the manada cut in two, overflowed like a torrent that has burst its dykes, rejoining on the bank, and crossing the stream in close column.
Terrible was the spectacle presented by this manada flying in horror, pursued by wild beasts, and enclosing, amid its ranks, the fire kindled by the hunter, and which seemed like a gloomy lighthouse intended to indicate the track.
They soon plunged into the stream, which they crossed in a straight line, and their long serried columns glided up the other bank, where the head of the manada speedily disappeared.
The hunters were saved by the coolness and presence of mind of the Canadian; still, for nearly two hours longer, they remained Concealed among the branches that sheltered them.