“Well, keep your right leg a bit to one side, an’ I’ll stop yer horse for ye,” said Bounce, coolly cocking his rifle.
“Hold hard, old fellow!” cried Marston, in some alarm; “you’ll smash my thigh-bone if you try. Stay, I’ll do the thing myself.”
Saying this, Marston drew his long hunting-knife, and plunged it into the buffalo’s side.
“Lower down, lad—lower down. Ye can’t reach the life there.”
March bent forward, and plunged his knife into the animal’s side again—up to the hilt; but it still kept on its headlong course, although the blood flowed in streams upon the plain. The remainder of the buffaloes had diverged right and left, leaving this singular group alone.
“Mind your eye,” said Bounce quickly, “she’s a-goin’ to fall.”
Unfortunately Marston had not time given him to mind either his eye or his neck. The wounded buffalo stumbled, and fell to the ground with a sudden and heavy plunge, sending its wild rider once again on an aerial journey, which terminated in his coming down on the plain so violently that he was rendered insensible.
On recovering consciousness, he found himself lying on his back, in what seemed to be a beautiful forest, through which a stream flowed with a gentle, silvery sound. The bank opposite rose considerably higher than the spot on which he lay, and he could observe, through his half-closed eyelids, that its green slope was gemmed with beautiful flowers, and gilded with patches of sunlight that struggled through the branches overhead.
Young Marston’s first impression was that he must be dreaming, and that he had got into one of the fairytale regions about which he had so often read to his mother. A shadow seemed to pass over his eyes as he thought this, and, looking up, he beheld the rugged face of Bounce gazing at him with an expression of considerable interest and anxiety.
“I say, Bounce, this is jolly!”