ade off. With
spurs and quirt, Roosevelt urged his tired pony forward. Night closed
in and the full moon rose out of the black haze on the horizon. The
pony plunged to within sixty or seventy yards of the wounded bull, and
could gain no more. Joe Ferris, better mounted, forged ahead. The
bull, seeing him coming, swerved. Roosevelt cut across and came almost
up to him. The ground over which they were running was broken into
holes and ditches, and the fagged horses floundered and pitched
forward at every step.

At twenty feet, Roosevelt fired, but the pony was pitching like a
launch in a storm, and he missed. He dashed in closer.

[Illustration: The prairie at the edge of the Bad Lands.]

[Illustration: "Broken Country".]

The bull's tail went up and he wheeled suddenly and charged with
lowered horns.

The pony, panic-stricken, spun round and tossed up his head, striking
the rifle which Roosevelt was holding in both hands and knocking it
violently against his forehead, cutting a deep gash. The blood poured
into Roosevelt's eyes.

Ferris reined in his pony. "All right?" he called, evidently
frightened.

"Don't mind me!" Roosevelt shouted, without turning an instant from
the business in hand. "I'm all right."

For an instant it was a question whether Roosevelt would get the
buffalo or the buffalo would get Roosevelt. But he swerved his horse,
and the buffalo, plunging past, charged Ferris and followed him as he
made off over the broken ground, uncomfortably close to the tired
pony's tail. Roosevelt, half-blinded, tried to run in on him again,
but his pony stopped, dead beat; and by no spurring could he force him
out of a slow trot. Ferris, swerving suddenly and dismounting, fired,
but the dim moonlight made accurate aim impossible, and the buffalo,
to the utter chagrin of the hunters, lumbered off and vanished into
the darkness. Roosevelt followed him for a short space afoot in
hopeless and helpless wrath.

There was no possibility of returning to Lang's that night. They were
not at all certain where they were, but they knew they were a long way
from the mouth of the Little Cannonball. They determined to camp near
by for the night.

They did not mount the exhausted horses, but led them, stumbling,
foaming and sweating, while they hunted for water. It was an hour
before they found a little mud-pool in a reedy hollow. They had drunk
nothing for twelve hours and were parched with thirst, but the water
of the poo