ut taking proper aim. He
struck him, but he was unable to check his charge: indeed he rather
added to his fury. Stepping back, so as to shield himself as much as he
could behind the nearest tree, he began reloading his weapon with the
utmost haste.

Meantime Terry, by desperate running, reached the tree at which he aimed
a few steps in advance of his formidable foe. He had no time to climb
the trunk, but believing the lowermost limb was within reach, he made a
leap, seized it with both hands and swung himself out of reach, just as
the bull thundered beneath like a runaway engine.

Finding he had missed his victim, the savage beast snorted with rage,
wheeled about, came back a few paces and was passing beneath the limb
again, when a singular accident gave an astonishing turn to the whole
business.

The limb which afforded Terry Clark his temporary safety was unable to
bear his weight, and, while he was struggling to raise himself to the
upper side and it was bending low with him, it broke like a pipe stem
close to the body of the tree.

This took place so suddenly that the youth had not the slightest
warning. Indeed it would not have availed him had he known what was
coming, for the time was too brief in which to help himself.

Down he came with the limb grasped in both hands and fell squarely on
the back of the buffalo bull. Fortunately the bewildered animal had
just shifted his position, so that the lad fell with his face turned
toward the head instead of in "reverse order."

Even in that exciting moment Terry saw the grotesqueness of the
situation. His legs were stretched apart so as to span the animal just
back of his enormous neck. Letting go of the branch that had played him
the trick, he grasped the bushy mane with both hands and yelled in a
voice that might have been heard a mile away:

"_All aboard! off wid ye!_"

So far as a bull is capable of feeling emotion, that particular specimen
must have been in a peculiar frame of mind. He glared about him, here
and there, turned part way round, as if the whole thing was more than he
could understand, and then as his bulging eyes caught sight of the
remarkable load on his back and he felt the weight of the burden, he was
seized with a panic.

He emitted a single whiffing snort, and flinging his tail high in air,
made for the other side of the prairie as if Death himself was racing at
his heels. His actions were of that pronounced character that his
fright co