d now I perceived that the great
prairie, far as my eyes could stretch, was covered by a herd of wild
buffaloes; struck by some sudden terror, they had taken what is called
'the Stampedo,' and set out at full speed. In an instant they
were around me on every side,--a great moving sea of dark-backed
monsters,--roaring in terrible uproar, and tossing their savage heads
wildly to and fro, in all the paroxysm of terror. To return, or even to
extricate myself, was impossible; the dense mass pressed like a wall
at either side of me, and I was borne along in the midst of the heaving
herd, without the slightest hope of rescue. I cannot--you would not ask
me, if even I could--recall the terrors of that dreadful night, which in
its dark hours compassed the agonies of years. Until the moon got up,
I hoped that the herd might pass on, and at last leave me at liberty
behind; but when she rose, and I looked back, I saw the dark sea of
hides, as if covering the whole wide prairie, while the deep thunder
from afar mingled with the louder bellowing of the herd around me.

"I suppose my reeling brain became maddened by the excitement; for even
yet, when by any accident I suffer slight illness, terrible fancies of
that dreadful scene come back; and I have been told that, in my wild
cries and shouts, I seem encouraging and urging on the infuriate herd,
and by my gestures appearing to control and direct their headlong
course. Had it been possible, I believe I should have thrown myself to
the earth and sought death at once, even in this dreadful form, than
live to die the thousand deaths of agony that night inflicted; but this
could not be, and so, as day broke, I was still carried on, not, indeed,
with the same speed as before; weariness weighed on the vast moving
mass, but the pressure of those behind still drove them onward. I
thought the long hours of darkness were terrible; and the appalling
gloom of night added tortures to my sufferings; but the glare of
daylight, the burning sun, and the clouds of dust were still worse. I
remember, too, when exhaustion had nearly spent my last frail energy,
and when my powerless hands, letting fall the bridle, dropped heavily to
my side, that the herd suddenly halted,--halted, as if arrested by some
gigantic hand; and then the pressure became so dreadful that my bones
seemed almost bursting from my flesh, and I screamed aloud in my agony.
After this, I remember little else. The other events of that ter