y side turned outward, was hanging to the
ground, so as to conceal the lower half of the carcass. The whole
surface was burnt to the colour of charcoal.

But where were the remains of the hunter? They were nowhere to be seen
near the spot. The smoke had now cleared away sufficiently to enable us
to observe the ground for several hundred yards around us. An object of
small dimensions could have been distinguished upon the now bare
surface; but none was seen. Yes! a mass lay close to the carcass, which
drew our attention for a moment; but on riding up to it we perceived
that it was the stomach and intestines of the buffalo, black and half
broiled.

But where were the bones of Rube? Had he got away from the spot, and
perished elsewhere?

We glanced towards the fire still raging on the distant plain.

No: it was not probable he had moved thence. By the last look we had
obtained of him, he did not appear to be making any effort to escape,
and he could scarcely have gone a hundred yards before the flames swept
over the spot and must have enveloped him.

How then? Were his bones entirely consumed--calcined--reduced to ashes?
The lean, withered, dried-up body of the old mountain-man favoured such
a supposition; and we began seriously to entertain it--for in no other
way could we account for the total absence of all remains!

For some moments we sat in our saddles under the influence of strange
emotions, but without exchanging a word. We scanned the black plain
round and round. The smoke no longer hindered our view of the ground.
In the weed-prairies there is no grassy turf; and the dry herbaceous
stems of the annuals had burned out with the rapidity of blazing flax,
so that nothing was left to cause a smoke. The fire was red or dead in
an instant. We could see clear enough all the surface of the ground,
but nothing that resembled the remains of a human being!

"No," said Garey, with a long-drawn sigh. "Poor Old Rube! The classed
thing has burned him to ashes--bones an all! Thur ain't as much o' 'im
left as 'ud fill a tabacca-pipe!"

"The hell, thur ain't!" replied a voice that caused both of us to start
in our saddles, as if it had been Rube's ghost that addressed us--"the
hell, thur ain't!" repeated the voice, as though it came out of the
ground beneath our feet. "Thur's enough o' Ole Rube left to fill the
stummuk o' this hyur buffler; an by the jumpin Geehosophat, a tight fit
it ur! Wagh! I'm well-n