Did you ever get it? There is a hunter here just
now who goes by the name of Jacques Caradoc. He is a first-rater--can
do anything, in a wild way, that lies within the power of mortal man,
and is an inexhaustible anecdote-teller, in a quiet way. He and I
have been out buffalo-hunting two or three times, and it would have
done your heart good, Harry, my dear boy, to have seen us scouring
over the prairie together on two big-boned Indian horses--regular
trained buffalo-runners, that didn't need the spur to urge, nor the
rein to guide them, when once they caught sight of the black cattle,
and kept a sharp look-out for badger-holes, just as if they had been
reasonable creatures. The first time I went out I had several rather
ugly falls, owing to my inexperience. The fact is, that if a man has
never run buffaloes before, he's sure to get one or two upsets, no
matter how good a horseman he may be. And that monster Jacques,
although he's the best fellow I ever met with for a hunting companion,
always took occasion to grin at my mishaps, and gravely to read me a
lecture to the effect that they were all owing to my own clumsiness or
stupidity; which, you will acknowledge, was not calculated to restore
my equanimity.

The very first run we had cost me the entire skin of my nose, and
converted that feature into a superb Roman for the next three weeks.
It happened thus. Jacques and I were riding over the prairie in
search of buffaloes. The place was interspersed with sundry knolls
covered with trees, slips and belts of woodland, with ponds scattered
among them, and open sweeps of the plain here and there; altogether a
delightful country to ride through. It was a clear early morning, so
that our horses were fresh and full of spirit. They knew, as well as
we ourselves did, what we were out for, and it was no easy matter to
restrain them. The one I rode was a great long-legged beast, as like
as possible to that abominable kangaroo that nearly killed me at Red
River; as for Jacques, he was mounted on a first-rate charger. I
don't know how it is, but somehow or other everything about Jacques,
or belonging to him, or in the remotest degree connected with him, is
always first-rate! He generally owns a first-rate horse, and if he
happens by any unlucky chance to be compelled to mount a bad one, it
immediately becomes another animal. He seems to infuse some o