ing old bull bison
galloped out of it and plunged over a steep bank into a patch of
broken ground which led around the base of a high butte. The bison was
out of sight before they had time to fire. At the risk of their necks
they sped their horses over the broken ground only to see the buffalo
emerge from it at the farther end and with amazing agility climb up
the side of a butte over a quarter of a mile away. With his shaggy
mane and huge forequarters he had some of the impressiveness of a lion
as he stood for an instant looking back at his pursuers. They followed
him for miles, but caught no glimpse of him again.

They were now on the prairie far to the east of the river, a steaming,
treeless region stretching in faint undulations north, east, and
south, until it met the sky in the blurred distance. Here and there it
was broken by a sunken water-course, dry in spite of a week of wet
weather, or a low bluff or a cluster of small, round-topped buttes.
The grass was burnt brown; the air was hot and still. The country had
the monotony and the melancholy and more than a little of the beauty
and the fascination of the sea.

They ate their meager lunch beside a miry pool, where a clump of
cedars under a bluff gave a few square feet of shadow.

All afternoon they rode over the dreary prairie, but it was late
before they caught another glimpse of game. Then, far off in the
middle of a large plain, they saw three black specks.

The horses were slow beasts, and were tired besides and in no
condition for running. Roosevelt and his mentor picketed them in a
hollow, half a mile from the game, and started off on their hands and
knees. Roosevelt blundered into a bed of cactus and filled his hands
with the spines; but he came within a hundred and fifty feet or less
of the buffalo. He drew up and fired. The bullet made the dust fly
from the hide as it hit the body with a loud crack, but apparently did
no particular harm. The three buffalo made off over a low rise with
their tails in the air.

The hunters returned to their horses in disgust, and for seven or
eight miles loped the jaded animals along at a brisk pace. Now and
again they saw the quarry far ahead. Finally, when the sun had just
set, they saw that all three had come to a stand in a gentle hollow.
There was no cover anywhere. They determined, as a last desperate
resort, to try to run them on their worn-out ponies.

The bison faced them for an instant, then turned and m