“Is the animal asleep? I am within ten paces of him, and still he stirs not! I will fire at him as he lies.”
I raised my rifle, levelled it, and was about to pull the trigger, when something red gleamed before my eyes. It was blood!
I lowered the piece with a feeling of terror, and commenced dragging upon the rein; but, before I could pull up, I was carried into the midst of the prostrate herd. Here my horse suddenly stopped, and I sat in my saddle as if spell-bound. I was under the influence of a superstitious awe. Blood was before me and around me. Turn which way I would, my eye rested upon blood!
My comrades closed in, yelling as they came; but their yelling suddenly ceased, and one by one reined up, as I had done, with looks of consternation and wonder.
It was not strange, at such a sight. Before us lay the bodies of the buffaloes. They were all dead, or quivering in the last throes. Each bad a wound above the brisket, and from this the red stream gurled out, and trickled down their still panting sides. Blood welled from their mouths and out of their nostrils. Pools of it were filtering through the prairie turf; and clotted gouts, flung out by the struggling hoof, sprinkled the grass around them!
“Oh, heavens! what could it mean?”
“Wagh! Santisima! Sacré Dieu!” were the exclamations of the hunters.
“Surely no mortal hand has done this?”
“It wa’n’t nuthin’ else,” cried a well-known voice, “ef yur call an Injun a mortal. ’Twur a red-skin, and this child—look ’ee-e!”
I heard the click of a rifle along with this abrupt exclamation. I turned suddenly. Rube was in the act of levelling his piece. My eye involuntarily followed the direction of the barrel. There was an object moving in the long grass.