on guard? Peer out and
you can see him. He is headed this way."

"Pwhat av thot? He can't see us, me b'y."

"He might not see us, but he is liable to smell us."

"At this distance? Go on wid yer foolin', Frankie!"

"I am not fooling; I am in earnest when I say he is liable to smell us.
We are on the wrong side of that herd, if so few may be called a herd."

"Whoy on th' wrong soide?"

"We are to windward."

"Not doirectly."

"No, not directly. If we had been, those creatures would be scampering
off already. Their sense of scent is remarkable."

"Is it a jolly ye're givin' us?"

"Not a bit of it, Barney; I am in earnest. Their power of sight is not
particularly acute, but it is said that they 'can smell a man a mile.'"

"Thin how can we ivver induce th' bastes to sit fer their photygrafs?"

"We'll have to get on the other side of them, and creep up behind that
small clump of timber."

"It will take an hour to get round there, me b'y."

"All of that; but I shall be well repaid if I can obtain a picture of
some real wild buffalo. What a sight it must have been to behold one of
those immense herds which once covered the plains 'from horizon to
horizon,' as we are told. Now it is a known fact that there are less
than fifty wild buffaloes in existence. A little more than fifteen years
ago it was said that about three hundred thousand Indians subsisted
almost entirely on the flesh of the buffalo."

"An' is thot roight?"

"It is right, Barney. The hide-hunter has destroyed the buffalo. The
creatures were slaughtered by thousands, stripped of their hides, and
their carcasses left to rot and make food for wolves and vultures."

"An' wur there no law to stop th' killin' av thim?"

"No. If there had been, it could not have been enforced on the great
plains. The railroad, civilization, and the white man's lust for
killing, which he calls sport, doomed the buffalo.

"But this is not getting a picture of 'real wild buffalo.' I have
pictures of Golden Gate Pass, Fire Hole Basin, Union Geysers, and almost
everything else but wild buffalo, and I have vowed I would not leave the
park till I had one of the latter. Come on."

He backed from the crest of the ridge and down the slope, Barney
following. In a few moments the boys could rise to their feet and make
their way along.

Both were armed, for it was not known what danger they might encounter,
and wild animals of all kinds were plentiful enough, from the beaver