Brian. You were sure, then, that you should kill some buffaloes.
Hunter. Yes; we had but little doubt on that head. I threw off my cap; stripped off my coat; tying a handkerchief round my head, and another round my waist; rolled up my sleeves; hastily put a few bullets in my mouth, and mounted a fleet horse, armed with a rifle and a thin, long spear: but most of the Crows had also bows and arrows.
Basil. Your thin spear would soon be broken.
Hunter. No; these thin, long spears are sometimes used, in buffalo hunting, for years without breaking. When an Indian chases a buffalo, if he does not use his rifle or bow and arrow, he rides on fast till he comes up with his game, and makes his horse gallop just the same pace as the buffalo. Every bound his horse gives, the Indian keeps moving his spear backwards and forwards across the pommel of his saddle, with the point sideways towards the buffalo. He gallops on in this way, saying “Whish! whish!” every time he makes a feint, until he finds himself in just the situation to inflict a deadly wound; then, in a moment, with all his strength, he plunges in his lance, quick as lightning, near the shoulders of the buffalo, and withdraws it at the same instant: the lance, therefore, is not broken, though the buffalo may be mortally wounded.
Brian. The poor buffalo has no chance at all.
Austin. Well! you mounted your horse, and rode off at full gallop—
Hunter. No; we walked our steeds all abreast, until we were seen by the herd of buffaloes. On catching sight of us, in an instant they set off, and we after them as hard as we could drive, a cloud of dust rising from the prairie, occasioned by the trampling hoofs of the buffaloes.
Basil. What a scamper there must be!
Hunter. Rifles were flashing, bowstrings were twanging, spears were dashed into the fattest of the herd, and buffaloes were falling in all directions. Here was seen an Indian rolling on the ground, and there a horse gored to death by a buffalo bull. I brought down one of the largest of the herd with my rifle, at the beginning of the hunt; and, before it was ended, we had as many buffaloes as we knew what to do with. Some of the party had loaded their rifles four or five times, while at full gallop, bringing down a buffalo at every fire.
Very willingly would Austin have lingered long enough to hear of half a dozen buffalo hunts; but, bearing in mind what had been said about a longer account at another time, he cordially thanked the hunter for all he had told them, and set off home, with a light heart, in earnest conversation with his brothers.