mmunicated itself to the rest of the herd. There was a general
uplifting of heads, and then, as the bulls and cows saw their most
eminent leader tearing across the prairie with a live boy astride of his
back, the sight was too much for them. A wholesale series of snorts and
bellows followed, tails were flirted aloft, and away the whole herd
went, fairly making the ground tremble beneath their tread.

By the time the alarmed Fred Linden had his rifle reloaded there was not
a buffalo within a hundred yards of him. The one that bore his friend on
his back was making as good time as the fleetest and was well toward the
head of the drove. The panic began like an eddy of the sea; there was a
surging of the animals toward the other side of the prairie and away
they went, as I have said, with their tails and heels in the air, as if
they meant to keep up their headlong flight for twenty miles, as is
sometimes the case, when an immense drove become stampeded on the great
plains of the west.

Whatever feelings of amusement might have been first aroused by the
figure that Terry cut on the back of the terrified bull were lost in the
dreadful fear of Fred that it would prove a fatal ride for his friend.

He could see him plainly for a fourth of a mile, but by that time the
trampling hoofs raised a dust in the dry grass which partly obscured the
herd and made it impossible to distinguish the figure of the lad
clinging to the mane of his novel charger.

"He will fall off," was the exclamation of Fred, "and will be trampled
to death by the others."

He recalled that the bull must have been wounded by his own shot, but
that knowledge gave him concern instead of relief; for if the bull
should give out, he would be trampled by those who were thundering so
close at his heels.

The buffaloes did not preserve the open order which marked them when
they were grazing, but crowded together, so that their backs looked like
brown dusty waves, rising and falling rapidly from the motions of their
bodies.

Fred quickly recovered from his astonishment. He had reloaded his gun,
but when ready to fire, was afraid to do so. Too many other buffaloes
interposed between him and the bull, and had he discharged his weapon,
he would have been as likely to hit Terry as to wound the brute that was
carrying him away with such speed.

Running to where the rifle of the boy lay, Fred picked it up, hastily
reloaded it, and started after the herd. He broke int