m! Look at 'em! Millions on
millions! Did anybody ever see the like?"

Perhaps Sandy's estimate of the numbers was a little exaggerated, but
it really was a wonderful sight. The rolls of the prairie, four or
five miles away, were dark with the vast and slow-moving herds that
were passing over, their general direction being toward the spot on
which the boys were standing. Now and again, some animals strayed off
in broken parties, but for the most part the phalanx seemed to be
solid, so solid that the green of the earth was completely hidden by
the dense herd.

The boys stood rooted to the spot with the intensity of their wonder
and delight. If there were not millions in that vast army of buffalo,
there were certainly hundreds of thousands. What would happen if that
great mob should suddenly take a notion to gallop furiously in their
direction?

"You needn't whisper so," said Charlie, noticing the awe-struck tones
of the youngsters. "They can't hear you, away off there. Why, the very
nearest of the herd cannot be less than five miles off; and they would
run from us, rather than toward us, if they were to see and hear us."

"I asked Younkins if he ever had any trouble with a buffalo when he
was hunting, and what do you suppose he said?" asked Oscar, who had
recovered his voice. "Well, he said that once he was out on horseback,
and had cornered a young buffalo bull in among some limestone ledges
up there on the Upper Fork, and 'the critter turned on him and made a
nasty noise with his mouth-like,' so that he was glad to turn and run.
'Nasty noise with his mouth,' I suppose was a sort of a snort--a
snort-like, as Younkins would say. There come the rest of the folks.
My! won't daddy be provoked that we didn't go back and help hitch
up!"

But the elders of the party had not forgotten that they were once boys
themselves, and when they reached the point on which the lads stood
surveying the sight, they also were stirred to enthusiasm. The great
herd was still moving on, the dark folds of the moving mass undulating
like the waves of a sea, as the buffalo rose and fell upon the surface
of the rolling prairie.

As if the leaders had spied the hunters, the main herd now swung away
more to the right, or northward, only a few detached parties coming
toward the little group of hunters that still watched them silently
from its elevated point of observation.

Younkins surveyed the movement critically and then announced it as his