s were met within sight of the Mississippi.

The herd upon which our friends looked with so much interest numbered
little more than a hundred, and they were ruminating along the side of
the prairie instead of cropping the grass in the middle of the plain.
Some of them seemed to be browsing among the trees and undergrowth, but
the major part were scattered over the prairie to a distance of two
hundred yards, while they were strung to a still greater extent parallel
with the course of the prairie itself. From this you will see they were
much dispersed, none of them being close to another, except he may have
brushed against him now and then.

The front of the drove was not less than two hundred feet away and
others could be heard ruminating among the trees, where their huge bushy
heads and big round eyes were often thrust into view. Some of them may
have caught sight of the lads, but if so, they did not consider them
worth attention, for they continued browsing and grazing, advancing step
by step toward the spot where our young friends stood.

"Frederick," said Terry, laying his hand on the arm of his companion,
and speaking with the gravity of a judge, "whin ye swoop yer gaze on
thim playthings out there, bear in mind that there's our breakfast, as
me grandmither obsarved whin the dinner table upsit and ivery thing
rolled down cellar."

"Our opinion is unanimous on that point; I have already selected my
victim, and if you will go away and start a fire, it will hurry matters
along."

"It ain't as bad as that," said Terry in some surprise, "I'm not so near
dead that I'm goin' to die in ten minutes if I don't git somethin' to
ate: I will stay and superintind the operations of shootin' one of them
little pets out there."

"It isn't the first buffalo I have killed--"

"I'm not aware that ye have killed that yit," interrupted the Irish lad
in his quizzical fashion.

"You soon will be, but I have been out with father before to-day and
shot buffaloes: have you?"

"No; whin I goes out huntin' yer fither has't the proud distinction of
bein' taken along. Lucky for the buffaloes I niver took a notion to go
out and kill siveral thousand: for that raison we find the drove out
there so innocent and confidin' that they don't know enough to be afeard
of us."

"Maybe they have no cause to be."

"But they can't know that _I'm_ not goin' to shoot among them,--so why
shouldn't they be scared out of their siven sinses? Howsumiver