e rider's horse fell also, throwing the old
hunter over his head sprawling, but with strange accuracy right between
the bull's horns! The first to recover from the terrible shock and to
regain his legs was the horse, which ran off with wonderful alacrity
several miles before he stopped. Next the bull rose, and shook himself
with an astonished air, as if he would like to know "how that was done?"
The hunter was on the great brute's back, who, perhaps, took the affair
as a good practical joke; but he was soon pitched to the ground, as the
buffalo commenced to jump "stiff-legged," and the latter, giving the
hunter one lingering look, which he long remembered, with remarkable
good nature ran off to join his companions. Had the bull been wounded,
the rider would have been killed, as the then enraged animal would have
gored and trampled him to death.

An officer of the old regular army told me many years ago that in
crossing the plains a herd of buffalo were fired at by a twelve-pound
howitzer, the ball of which wounded and stunned an immense bull.
Nevertheless, heedless of a hundred shots that had been fired at him,
and of a bulldog belonging to one of the officers, which had fastened
himself to his lips, the enraged beast charged upon the whole troop of
dragoons, and tossed one of the horses like a feather. Bull, horse, and
rider all fell in a heap. Before the dust cleared away, the trooper,
who had hung for a moment to one of the bull's horns by his waistband,
crawled out safe, while the horse got a ball from a rifle through his
neck while in the air and two great rips in his flank from the bull.

In 1839 Kit Carson and Hobbs were trapping with a party on the Arkansas
River, not far from Bent's Fort. Among the trappers was a green
Irishman, named O'Neil, who was quite anxious to become proficient in
hunting, and it was not long before he received his first lesson. Every
man who went out of camp after game was expected to bring in "meat" of
some kind. O'Neil said that he would agree to the terms, and was ready
one evening to start out on his first hunt alone. He picked up his rifle
and stalked after a small herd of buffalo in plain sight on the prairie
not more than five or six hundred yards from camp.

All the trappers who were not engaged in setting their traps or cooking
supper were watching O'Neil. Presently they heard the report of his
rifle, and shortly after he came running into camp, bareheaded, without
his gun, a