“That’s all right. You can have such hardware if you want,” returned Dig. “Give me a rifle every time.”
“Even if it fouls in the breach?” chuckled Chet.
Every creature but themselves and their mounts had disappeared from the plain by this time. They straightened the dead beast out and then rolled it on its back.
Much as he deplored any delay at this time, Chet could not think of going on and leaving the hide of the buffalo. Butchering the huge creature would be hard work for two boys with their little experience in such work; but they needed a part of the animal for food.
Dig vowed he could eat it all—horns and hide—he was so hungry!
They picketed the horses, removed their own coats, and whetted their knives. It was difficult work to get the hide off the buffalo, for the carcass weighed all of six hundred pounds—all the weight the two boys could possibly roll on the clean sward. They were more than an hour in getting the hide clear; Dig was satisfied to give up the idea of saving the head for mounting, although Chet managed it so that the horns came with the hide.
“Say! that’ll be something to show ’em back home!” panted Dig, holding up the fore part of the hide. “Cricky, Chet! we ought to have been photographed beside of this beast. Whew! he looks bigger now he’s skinned than he did before. Wish somebody that needed it had all this meat.”
“I wish he did,” agreed Chet.
“But never mind,” said Dig, the next minute. “We need some of it right now. Wish we had something to boil the tongue in.”
But they opened the carcass to drain it (as well as it could be drained on the ground) and cut out several ribs for their own supper.