ents,
brought them to the ground like skittles from well-directed hands.

There appeared to be no chance for me to flesh my maiden lance, and I
began to despair of adding a single head to the number slain, when I
caught sight of a solitary fugitive stealing away through a stony ravine
much to the left of the line which the rest had taken, and from his
action I concluded that he had met with a wound which materially
interfered with his speed. With an unequivocal disposition to refuse
taking any other course than the one he was pursuing, Nigger began to
wrestle for the mastership, and being encumbered with my lance I had
some little difficulty in pricking him toward the point where the
buffalo, alone in his flight, was using his best energies to escape. The
pointed iron, however, prevailed, and the plucky little horse, seeing
the animal scramble over a conical shaped hillock in the distance,
settled himself again in his best pace, and carried me forward in
winning style.

The buffalo in his stride is a most singular looking animal, pitching to
and fro in heavy lumbering fashion, and yet gets over the ground much
faster than he appears. From the thickness of his forehand he is any
thing but speedy on rising ground; but on a level, or descent, he can
play a merry bat. He is, however, no match for a horse under any
circumstances, and under-sized as Nigger was, and notwithstanding the
distance lost at the start, I have no doubt, had he not been crippled,
but that we should have come up with the patriarch in a run of somewhat
longer duration.

As it was we were, in nautical phraseology, coming up with the chase
hand over hand, and after floundering through a spongy bottom, in which
were several wallows of some dozen feet in diameter made by the
buffaloes, I found myself near enough to try the effect of lead, and
dropping my lance to trail along the ground by a thong attached to my
wrist, for I was not expert enough to handle both it and my rifle, as an
Indian would have done without inconvenience, I brought the barrels to
bear and gave the contents of both just as Nigger's nose was on a level
with the haunch of one of the largest and blackest bulls that ever
ranged over a western plain.

With due regard for the preservation of himself, and possibly his rider,
Nigger made an abrupt curve, and sheering off, almost at a right angle,
avoided an ugly, vicious thrust, which the bull might have made much
more effective than my b