We did not stop running as soon as we might have done. And I here enter protest against the nonsense indulged in on one point by most of the novelists who educate people in buffalo lore. When we halted, there stood the bull not thirty yards from the spot where he had first stopped, although we had located him, throughout more than half a mile's ride but a few feet from our horses' tails, and at times had even imagined we heard his deep panting. This mortifying record would have been saved us had we known that a buffalo's charges never extend beyond a short distance. Either his adversary or his attack is speedily terminated. He does not pursue, in the "long, deep gallop" style at all. Yet I scarcely remember a single instance mentioned in those old books of western adventure, in which a buffalo's charge was for a less distance than a mile. In one case that I now recall, the race was nip and tuck between man and bison for over an hour, and the biped was finally enabled to save his life only by leaving the saddle and swinging into a tree! Such stories are simply balderdash.
As soon as possible after checking our horses, we rode back toward the wagon and the game, seeing in the former, the grinning faces of our men. The buffalo was still on his feet, but while we looked he slowly sunk to his knees, like an ox lying down to rest, and then quietly reposed on his belly, in the same attitude one sees domestic cattle assume when wishing a quiet chew of the cud. Had it not been for his bloody nose and wild eyes, he would have looked as peaceful as any bovine that ever breathed.
GOING AFTER AMMUNITION.
Wishing to put the poor brute out of misery, we approached closer, and several of us dismounted, when a general fire was opened. Like a cat, the old fellow was on his feet again almost instantly. By a singular coincidence, our entire party just then discovered that we were out of ammunition, and in a body started for the wagon, to get some. Muggs afterward assured us that, at the time, he had just got his hand in, "so that every shot told, you know," and I have the authority of all for the deliberate statement that the bull would have been riddled before moving a foot had not the cartridges suddenly given out.
The effort of getting up had sent the mass of blood collected from inward bleeding surging out of the buffalo's nose, and, as we looked back, he was tottering feebly, and an instant afterward fell to the ground. There was no doubt now of his death, and we swarmed upon and around him. He was an immense old fellow, and his hide fairly covered with the scars of past battles. Inasmuch as this was our first trophy, it was determined to take his skin, and we forthwith seated the Professor on his great shaggy neck, with the horns forming arms for an impromptu hunter's throne. From thence he wrote upon leaves from his note-book a letter to his class at the East, which he permitted me to copy. I introduce it here, as showing that the blood of even a savan pulsates warmly amid such circumstances as now surrounded us.
| "On a Buffalo, in the | } |
| Year of my Happiness, One. | } |
"Dear Class—I know the staid and quiet habits that characterize all of you, and that you are not given to hard riding and buffalo hunting. Yet this prairie air, with its rich fragrance and wild freeness, would give a new circulation to the blood of each one of you. Like a gale at sea, the breeze sweeps against one's cheeks, and the great billows of land rise on every side, as mountains of troubled ocean. Why not desert the city and lose yourself for awhile in this great grand waste? Antelope are bounding and buffalo running on every side of us, while villages of prairie dogs bark at the flying herds. One grows in self-estimation after breathing this air, and, feeling that safety and life depend on his own exertions, learns to place reliance upon the powers which Nature has given him, with manly independence of artificial laws and police.
"While I am writing, the first victim of our prowess, a magnificent specimen of the American bison, is being skinned by our suite, the robe from which, when prepared, we intend sending you. The men say it must be dressed by some of the civilized Indians on the reserves, as the white man's tanning injures the value.