In Buffalo Days 
On the floor, on either side of my fireplace, 
lie two buffalo skulls. They are white and 
weathered, the horns cracked and bleached 
by the snows and frosts and the rains and 
heats of many winters and summers. Often, 
late at night, when the house is quiet, I sit 
before the fire, and muse and dream of the 
old days; and as I gaze at these relics of 
the past, they take life before my eyes. The 
matted brown hair again clothes the dry bone, 
and in the empty orbits the wild eyes gleam. 
Above me curves the blue arch; away on 
every hand stretches the yellow prairie, and 
scattered near and far are the dark forms of 
buffalo. They dot the rolling hills, quietly 
feeding like tame cattle, or lie at ease on the 
slopes, chewing the cud and half asleep. The 
yellow calves are close by their mothers; on 
little eminences the great bulls paw the dust, 
and mutter and moan, while those whose horns 
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