“Lots I had to do with it,” grumbled his chum. “It was your shot brought him down.”
“But if it hadn’t been for your wounding him, I don’t think he’d be lying here at all. They’re pretty tough creatures to kill, boy.”
“Cricky! I should say they were. And as wicked as lions or bears. Whew! I feel as though I’d had a narrow escape, Chet.”
“I reckon you have!”
“And that confounded old rifle! It fouled just as I tried to work the lever.”
“Well! let’s be glad it was no worse. And, Dig! we’ve got the buffalo—the first buffalo we ever shot.”
“You’re a wonder, Chet,” declared his generous chum. “You put that ball right where it would do the most good. I lost my head completely—I own up to that. Talk about elk fever! that creature looked as big as a house to me,” and Dig laughed.
“It is a mystery to me how such a big creature could be killed by only two bullets,” said Chet. They had dismounted now and stood beside the inert body of the buffalo bull. “I read, though, that some Indians when riding to kill a buffalo would force their ponies close up to the running beast and drive an arrow clear through his body. What do you know about that?”
“Don’t know anything about it,” returned Dig, with a whimsical look, “but I think that the fellow that told that ought to be woke up—he was lying on his back!”
“I don’t know about its being a dream. Before they got to fooling with the cast-off firearms of the white man, the Indian must have done a lot of killing with arrows and spears.”