"Keep it up just ten seconds longer, Sandy, and I'll be ready! The priming, boy, that's all! Now look out, here goes!"
As Bob said this he discharged his musket, after securing a fair aim, as the animal's flank came around in full view.
"Hurrah! he's down again!" gasped poor Sandy with almost his last breath, for he seemed on the verge of exhaustion from the whirl around that tree.
"Climb up out of reach, quick!" shouted Bob, jumping down so as to attract the attention of the bull toward himself should the animal manage to stagger to his legs again, for he saw his brother was exhausted and would now prove an easy victim.
But Sandy was on the ground, and he saw something that his brother did not. The last bullet had reached a vital spot, and already the big animal was quivering in the last expiring throes.
"Get your gun, and load up as fast as you can!" said Bob, himself suiting the action to the word.
"But see, he is dead!" expostulated the other, pointing to the buffalo, which by now had ceased to struggle and lay quite still.
"Never mind. Load the gun as fast as you can!" repeated Bob. "A hunter with an empty shooting-iron is an easy mark for every prowling redskin. Surely Pat has said that to us many times. And we now know there are Indians around here."