Hours would be enough. I could not stand it long. I already hungered,
but a worse appetite began to torture me: thirst. The hot sun, the
dust, the violent exercise of the past hour, all contributed to make me
thirsty. Even then, I would have risked life for a draught of water.
What would it come to should I not be relieved?

I had but one hope--that my companions would come to my relief; but I
knew that that would not be before morning. They would miss me of
course. Perhaps my horse would return to camp--that would send them out
in search for me--but not before night had fallen. In the darkness they
could not follow my trail. Could they do so in the light?

This last question, which I had put to myself, startled me. I was just
in a condition to look upon the dark side of everything, and it now
occurred to me that they might not be able to find me!

There were many possibilities that they might not. There were numerous
horse-trails on the prairie, where Indians had passed. I saw this when
tracking the buffalo. Besides, it might rain in the night, and
obliterate them all--my own with the rest. They were not likely to find
me by chance. A circle of ten miles diameter is a large tract. It was
a rolling prairie, as already stated, full of inequalities, ridges with
valleys between. The tree upon which I was perched stood in the bottom
of one of the valleys--it could not be seen from any point over three
hundred yards distant. Those searching for me might pass within hail
without perceiving either the tree or the valley.

I remained for a long time busied with such gloomy thoughts and
forebodings. Night was coming on, but the fierce and obstinate brute
showed no disposition to raise the siege. He remained watchful as ever,
walking round and round at intervals, lashing his tail, and uttering
that snorting sound so well-known, to the prairie-hunter, and which so
much resembles the grunting of hogs when suddenly alarmed. Occasionally
he would bellow loudly like the common bull.

While watching his various manoeuvres, an object on the ground drew my
attention--it was the trail-rope left by my horse. One end of it was
fastened round the trunk by a firm knot--the other lay far out upon the
prairie, where it had been dragged. My attention had been drawn to it
by the bull himself, that in crossing over it had noticed it, and now
and then pawed it with his hoofs.

All at once a bright idea flashed upon me--a