And the shooting, too, he might have added, for he had already sent several of his enemies to their last account, and he was as yet totally uninjured.
He glanced ahead, and a cry of surprise, if not of fear, burst from his lips.
The plain was here intersected by a rapidly-flowing stream, hemmed in by long spurs of rock.
On the bank which the darkey was rapidly approaching, a strange and thrilling scene was being enacted.
A dozen buffaloes, wounded, covered with blood, and evidently maddened to a desperate degree, were fighting a terrific running fight, continually dashing around and around in a big circle, describing the distance of a hundred yards.
Their sides and horns were reeking with gore and their bellowing sounded like the moans of a dying army.
In the center of this immense circle, and fairly hemmed in by the beasts as they tore around, were two trembling horses, and upon their backs were seated a man and a boy.
These latter were none others than James Van Dorn and Ralph Radcliffe, the son of the man Van Dorn had so brutally murdered in his house at Clarkville.
“For de land’s sake!” cried Pomp, fully surprised by the wonderful sight. “Dey is hemmed in by dem bufflers, an’ dey is not able to get out. Why de debbil don’t de man pop some of de bufflers ober?”
But when he looked again he saw that the man had no rifle; and a revolver, in the hands of an ordinary marksman, and used upon the tough hide of a bison, doesn’t amount to much.