But Chet was mistaken. The elks flew over the rise. It would have been a long shot had they tried it then. On rushed the bay and the black, both as eager in the chase as their young masters.
Chet fairly rose in his stirrups to see over the round top of the mound. He saw the tossing horns of the bigger elk; and then—he saw something else!
“Dig! Dig! they’re here!” he gasped, and almost fell out of his saddle, he was so amazed.
CHAPTER XXIII—THE FIRST BUFFALO
Chet was taller than his chum and he had risen in his stirrups, while Dig lay out on the black’s neck and cheered him on. So the first named lad saw over the rise and out upon the plain.
The two elks were hammering down the slope, their slender legs doubling under their round bodies, and stretching out again with almost bewildering swiftness—like the driving-rods of fast-turning engines. But they were a good shot, if not an easy one, for the boys were not directly behind them. A ball, directed properly, would have raked either beast from forward of the hip into, and through, the heart. This was not to be, however, Chet and Dig were destined never to knock over those elks.
What arrested Chet’s hand was the sight of a herd of animals grazing on the plain, and almost as close to him as the elks. The sight of them brought the cry to his lips:
“Dig! Dig! they’re here!”
“Who are here? Those rascals?” Dig yelled, thinking first of the thieves who had robbed them the night before.
But the next moment he saw the grazing herd-the sixteen buffaloes!