dismounted, and amused myself with firing at the wolves. Henry
attentively scrutinized the surrounding landscape; at length he gave a
shout, and called on me to mount again, pointing in the direction of the
sand-hills. A mile and a half from us, two minute black specks slowly
traversed the face of one of the bare glaring declivities, and
disappeared behind the summit. "Let us go!" cried Henry, belaboring the
sides of Five Hundred Dollar; and I following in his wake, we galloped
rapidly through the rank grass toward the base of the hills.

From one of their openings descended a deep ravine, widening as it
issued on the prairie. We entered it, and galloping up, in a moment were
surrounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep sides were bare;
the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and various uncouth
plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-like prickly pear.
They were gashed with numberless ravines; and as the sky had suddenly
darkened, and a cold gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the
dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But Henry's face was all
eagerness. He tore off a little hair from the piece of buffalo robe
under his saddle, and threw it up to show the course of the wind. It
blew directly before us. The game were therefore to windward, and it was
necessary to make our best speed to get around them.

We scrambled from this ravine, and galloping away through the hollows,
soon found another, winding like a snake among the hills, and so deep
that it completely concealed us. We rode up the bottom of it, glancing
through the shrubbery at its edge, till Henry abruptly jerked his rein,
and slid out of his saddle. Full a quarter of a mile distant, on the
outline of the farthest hill, a long procession of buffalo were walking
in Indian file, with the utmost gravity and deliberation; then more
appeared, clambering from a hollow not far off, and ascending, one
behind the other, the grassy slope of another hill; then a shaggy head
and a pair of short broken horns appeared issuing out of a ravine close
at hand, and with a slow, stately step, one by one, the enormous brutes
came into view, taking their way across the valley, wholly unconscious
of an enemy. In a moment Henry was worming his way, lying flat on the
ground, through grass and prickly pears, toward his unsuspecting
victims. He had with him both my rifle and his own. He was soon out of
sight, and still the buffalo kept is