152 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



When belligerent, the old bulls make the most blustering 

 demonstrations, but are really cowardly. Facing the ap- 

 proaching hunter with a boastful and defiant air, they will 

 pace to and fro, threateningly pawing the earth, only to 

 take to their heels the next moment. The bulls greatly 

 enjoy pawing the earth and throwing it up with their 

 horns, digging into banks or getting down upon one knee 

 to strike into the le\ 7 el surface, so that the sheaths of their 

 horns are always badly splintered. They are very fond, too, 

 of rubbing themselves, and evidently regard the telegraph- 

 poles along the railroads as set there for their especial con- 

 venience in this respect. A line of telegraph was built 

 between Helena, Montana, and Fort Benton. But it was 

 found impracticable to maintain it beyond Fort Shaw, 

 where the mountains end, and when I passed there in 1877 

 the attempt had been abandoned. The buffaloes pushed 

 the poles down, and then getting entangled in the wire, 

 broke it to pieces. Fragments of this wire, twisted about 

 their horns, were carried many miles, and are still occasion- 

 ally picked up by hunters all over the grassy uplands that 

 stretch so boundlessly northward from the upper Missouri. 



But their chief delight is " wallowing." Finding in the ' 

 low parts of the prairie a little stagnant water among the 

 grass, or at least the surface soft and moist, an old bull 



