shoulder. Among us all she became
beef, and an expert hunter with us, whose business it was to supply the
camp with meat, skinned and butchered her and cooked a meal for us on the
spot. The beef was deliciously tender and well flavoured.

Now, before this cooking, in the excitement of the chase, I had ridden on
like an Indian, as Hassard said in his letter, whooping like one all
alone after the buffalo, and in my joy forgot to shake the spent
cartridge out of my Spenser seven-shooter carbine. All at once I found
myself right in the herd, close by a monstrous bull, whose height at the
instant when he turned on me to gore me seemed to be about a hundred and
fifty feet. But my horse was used to this, and swerved with incredible
tact and swiftness, while I held on. I then had a perfectly close shot,
not six feet off, under the shoulder, and I raised the carbine and pulled
trigger, when it--_ticked_! I had forgotten the dead cartridge, and was
not used to the arm which I carried. I think that I swore, and if I did
not I am sorry for it. Before I could arrange my charge the buffaloes
were far away.

{Stairs of rock: p329.jpg}

However, we had got our cow, and that was more than we really needed. At
any rate, I had shot a buffalo and had a stupendous run. And here I must
mention that while racing and whooping, I executed the most insanely
foolish thing I ever did in all my life, which astonished the hunter and
all present to the utmost. I was at the top of a declivity from which
there descended a flight of natural stairs of rock, but every one very
broad, like the above sketch.

And being inspired by the devil, and my horse not objecting at all, I
clattered down over it at full speed _a la_ Putnam. I have heard that
Indians do this very boldly, declaring that it is perfectly safe if the
rider is not afraid, and I am quite sure that mine must have been an
Indian horse. I hope that no one will think that I have put forward or
made too much of these trifling boyish tricks of recklessness. They are
of daily occurrence in the Wild West among men who like excitement, and
had Robert Hunt been among us there would have been fun indeed.

So we turned homewards, for the Indian Conference had proved a failure.
We had for our driver a man named Brigham, to whom I had taken a great
liking. He had lived as a trader among the wildest Indians, spoke
Spanish fluently, and knew the whole Western frontier like his pocket.
The