They load the gun with incredible speed, for they do not use the ramrod, but let the bullets, of which they always keep a certain number in their mouths, fall immediately on the powder, to which it adheres, and which expels it again at the same moment. Owing to this great speed, the prairie hunters, in a little while, make a frightful massacre in a herd of buffaloes, and this time two-thirds of the manada were killed, and the animals covered the battlefield in heaps.
The buffaloes, enclosed in a circle whence they could not escape, terrified by the yells of the hunters, who dashed at them from all sides, brandishing their weapons, and waving their robes, fled in all directions, at a pace greater than I could have imagined, judging from their enormous bulk.
Belhumeur and I had settled onto an old buffalo, who gave us plenty of work. Several point-blank shots had not proved sufficient to check his pace. He frequently stopped, threw the earth over his head with a convulsive movement, after digging it up with his fore-feet, assumed a menacing attitude, and even pursued us for some ten or fifteen yards. But we easily got away, and the restless animal discontinued its mad and purposeless chase so soon as we stopped resolutely before it. Its strength was at length exhausted, but it did not succumb until we had given it at least twenty bullets.
This first success gave me a liking for the sport and the whole time the hunt lasted I was one of the most eager in pursuit. At last, at the expiration of three days, Eagle-head ordered the end of the massacre. Obeying the chief's signal, the hunters forced open a large gap, through which the decimated relics of the unhappy herd dashed, lowing with terror.
Two hundred and seventy buffaloes had been killed in three days, an almost miraculous hunt, which secured the Comanches of the Lakes abundance of provisions during the rainy season. The victims were loaded on horses, and we gaily returned to the village, where the hunters were received on their arrival with marks of the liveliest joy and the extraordinary rejoicings usual on such occasions.
One last remark may be allowed me. Everything is valuable in the buffalo: the meat, the hide, the bones, the horns, and even the hair, which is made into hats comparable in beauty and substance to the best beaver. Why is not the buffalo, then, acclimatised in Europe? The Society of Acclimatisation so recently created, and which has already produced such excellent results, is keeping, we doubt not, a place for the buffalo, which we hope soon to see occupied.
[1] Although this animal is really the bison, it is so commonly called buffalo that I have adhered to that term.