. His whole body became vibrant with the obvious desire to
fight,--and no antagonist in sight. Uttering a tremendous grunt, he
arched his back again, stamping with all four feet, somewhat like the
capers of a Mexican "broncho" when preparing to buck"; then he snorted
once more, with such explosive force as seemed to shake the tree
beside which we were hidden, as he looked about for something to pitch
into.

[Illustration: "From our coign of vantage we continued to shoot"]

By this time we thought we understood why a kind Providence had
caused that cottonwood tree to lodge at such an angle that a buffalo
could not climb it, but we could--and we did. Getting ourselves safely
into the fork of the tree, we continued to shoot from our coign of
vantage till the big fellow dropped. When he ceased to kick or give
any sign of belligerency, we came down and approached him, carefully.
Then we dressed him, or as much of him as we could carry in two bags
that we had strapped behind our saddles, and rejoined the train after
our people had gone into camp for the night.

[Illustration: Chimney Rock]

We had our first buffalo steak for supper that night. We also had the
satisfaction of observing signs of jealousy on the part of the other
men who had never killed a buffalo.

One of the first natural curiosities we saw was Chimney Rock; a
vertical column of sandstone something like forty feet high, with a
rugged stone bluff rising abruptly near it. Its appearance, from our
distant view, resembled a stone chimney from which the building had
been burned away, as it stood, solitary on the flat earth at the south
side of the Platte River, we traveling up the north shore. Such a
time-chiseled monument was a novelty to us then. To the early
emigrants it was the first notable landmark.

While some distance farther west, as we scaled the higher slopes, we
could see to the southward the snow-capped peaks of that region which
long afterward was taken from western Nebraska to become the Territory
of Colorado, and later still, the State of that name. Looking over and
past the locality where, more than a year thereafter, the town of
Denver was laid out, we saw, during several weeks, the summit of
Pike's Peak, hundreds of miles away.

One evening when we were going into camp we were overtaken by a man
trundling a push-cart. This vehicle had between its wheels a box
containing the man's supplies of food and camp articles, with the
blankets, whi