e creature's breath upon his
cheeks, when all at once the horned head so close above his own swerved
aside with a snort from the dead body of the wolf at his feet. The bull
passed him like a thunderbolt, and he heard the infuriated stamping
which fairly shook the ground in the thicket below, where this king of
the herds paused to bellow and paw the earth, throwing clods high above
the environing copse.

The woods seemed full of maddened, frightened cattle, and Emsden's horse
was frantically galloping after the cavalcade of hunters and their
pack-train, all the animals more or less beyond the control of the men.
He felt it an ill chance that left him thus alone and afoot in this
dense wilderness, several days' travel from the station. He was hardly
sure that he would be missed by his comrades, themselves scattered, the
pack-horses having broken from the path which they had traveled in
single file, and now with their burdens of value all foolishly careering
wildly through the woods. The first prudential care of the hunters he
knew would be to recover them and re-align the train, lest some
miscreant, encountering the animals, plunder the estrays of their loads
of hard-won deerskins and furs.

The presence of cattle suggested to Emsden the proximity of human
dwellings, and yet this was problematic, for beyond branding and
occasional saltings the herds ranged within large bounds on lands
selected for their suitability as pasturage. The dwellings of these
pioneer herdsmen might be far away indeed, and in what direction he
could not guess. Since the Cherokee War, and the obliteration of all
previous marks of white settlements in this remote region, Emsden was
unfamiliar with the more recent location of "cow-pens," as the ranches
were called, and was only approximately acquainted with the new site of
the settlers' stations. Nothing so alters the face of a country as the
moral and physical convulsion of war. Even many of the Indian towns were
deserted and half charred,--burned by the orders of the British
commanders. One such stood in a valley through which he passed on his
homeward way; the tender vernal aspect of this green cove, held in the
solemn quiet of the encircling mountains, might typify peace itself. Yet
here the blue sky could be seen through the black skeleton rafters of
the once pleasant homes; and there were other significant skeletons in
the absolute solitude,--the great ribs of dead chargers, together with
bro