The Bison or American Buffalo 17 



not have to halt. At last they reached stretches 

 of bare ground, sun-baked and grassless, where 

 the trail grew dim; and here they had to go 

 very slowly, carefully examining the faint 

 dents and marks made in the soil by the heavy 

 hoofs, and unraveling the trail from the mass 

 of old footmarks. It was tedious work, but it 

 enabled them to completely recover their 

 breath by the time that they again struck the 

 grassland; and but a few hundred yards from 

 its edge, in a slight hollow, they saw the four 

 buffaloes just entering a herd of fifty or sixty 

 that were scattered out grazing. The herd 

 paid no attention to the new-comers, and these 

 immediately began to feed greedily. After 

 a whispered consultation, the two hunters crept 

 back, and made a long circle that brought 

 them well to leeward of the herd, in line with 

 a slight rise in the ground. They then crawled 

 up to this rise and, peering through the tufts 

 of tall, rank grass, saw the unconscious beasts 

 a hundred and twenty-five or fifty yards away. 

 They fired together, each mortally wounding 

 his animal, and then, rushing in as the herd 

 halted in confusion, and following them as 

 they ran, impeded by numbers, hurry, and 

 panic, they eventually got three more. 

 On another occasion the same two hunters 



