false;
and that he could not conceive how he had offended Mr. Delorier, or
provoked him to use such ungentlemanly expressions. The tempest of words
raged with such fury that nothing else could be heard. But Tete Rouge,
from his greater command of English, had a manifest advantage over
Delorier, who after sputtering and grimacing for a while, found his
words quite inadequate to the expression of his wrath. He jumped up
and vanished, jerking out between his teeth one furious sacre enfant de
grace, a Canadian title of honor, made doubly emphatic by being usually
applied together with a cut of the whip to refractory mules and horses.

The next morning we saw an old buffalo escorting his cow with two small
calves over the prairie. Close behind came four or five large white
wolves, sneaking stealthily through the long meadow-grass, and watching
for the moment when one of the children should chance to lag behind his
parents. The old bull kept well on his guard, and faced about now and
then to keep the prowling ruffians at a distance.

As we approached our nooning place, we saw five or six buffalo standing
at the very summit of a tall bluff. Trotting forward to the spot where
we meant to stop, I flung off my saddle and turned my horse loose. By
making a circuit under cover of some rising ground, I reached the foot
of the bluff unnoticed, and climbed up its steep side. Lying under the
brow of the declivity, I prepared to fire at the buffalo, who stood on
the flat surface about not five yards distant. Perhaps I was too hasty,
for the gleaming rifle-barrel leveled over the edge caught their notice;
they turned and ran. Close as they were, it was impossible to kill them
when in that position, and stepping upon the summit I pursued them over
the high arid tableland. It was extremely rugged and broken; a great
sandy ravine was channeled through it, with smaller ravines entering on
each side like tributary streams. The buffalo scattered, and I soon lost
sight of most of them as they scuttled away through the sandy chasms; a
bull and a cow alone kept in view. For a while they ran along the edge
of the great ravine, appearing and disappearing as they dived into some
chasm and again emerged from it. At last they stretched out upon the
broad prairie, a plain nearly flat and almost devoid of verdure, for
every short grass-blade was dried and shriveled by the glaring sun. Now
and then the old bull would face toward me; whenever he did so I