y ears--I dared not spare time to look back.

At this moment, an object appeared before me, that promised, one way or
another, to interrupt the chase; it was a ditch or gully, that
intersected my path at right angles. It was several feet in depth, dry
at the bottom, and with perpendicular sides.

I was almost upon its edge before I noticed it, but the moment it came
under my eye, I saw that it offered the means of a temporary safety at
least. If I could only leap this gully, I felt satisfied that the
buffalo could not.

It was a sharp leap--at least, seventeen feet from cheek to cheek; but I
had done more than that in my time; and, without halting in my gait, I
ran forward to the edge, and sprang over.

I alighted cleverly upon the opposite bank, where I stopped, and turned
round to watch my pursuer.

I now ascertained how near my end I had been: the bull was already up to
the very edge of the gully. Had I not made my leap at the instant I
did, I should have been by that time dancing upon his horns. He himself
had balked at the leap; the deep chasm-like cleft had cowed him. He saw
that he could not clear it; and now stood upon the opposite bank with
head lowered, and spread nostrils, his tail lashing his brown flanks,
while his glaring black eyes expressed the full measure of his baffled
rage.

I remarked that my shot had taken effect in his shoulder, as the blood
trickled from his long hair.

I had almost begun to congratulate myself on having escaped, when a
hurried glance to the right, and another to the left, cut short my
happiness. I saw that on both sides, at a distance of less than fifty
paces, the gully shallowed out into the plain, where it ended; at either
end it was, of course, passable.

The bull observed this almost at the same time as myself; and, suddenly
turning away from the brink, he ran along the edge of the chasm,
evidently with the intention of turning it.

In less than a minute's time we were once more on the same side, and my
situation appeared as terrible as ever; but, stepping back for a short
run, I re-leaped the chasm, and again we stood on opposite sides.

During all these manoeuvres I had held on to my rifle; and, seeing now
that I might have time to load it, I commenced feeling for my
powder-horn. To my astonishment, I could not lay my hands upon it: I
looked down to my breast for the sling--it was not there; belt and
bullet-pouch too--all were gone! I remembered lifting