264 The Lordly Buffalo. 



spite of their fatigue they were very watchful and restless, 

 continually snorting or standing with their ears forward, 

 peering out into the night ; wild beasts, or some such 

 things, were about. The day before we had had a false 

 alarm from supposed hostile Indians, who turned out to 

 be merely half-breed Crees ; and, as we were in a perfectly 

 lonely part of the wilderness, we knew we were in the 

 domain of both white and red horse-thieves, and that the 

 latter might in addition to our horses try to take our 

 scalps. It was some time before we dozed off; waking 

 up with a start whenever we heard the horses stop 

 grazing and stand motionless with heads raised, looking 

 out into the darkness. But at last, tired out, we fell 

 sound asleep. 



About midnight we were rudely wakened by having 

 our pillows whipped out from under our heads ; and as 

 we started from the bed we saw, in the bright moonlight, 

 the horses galloping madly off with the saddles, tied to 

 the lariats whose other ends were round their necks, 

 bounding and trailing after them. Our first thought was 

 that they had been stampeded by horse-thieves, and we 

 rolled over and crouched down in the grass with our 

 rifles ; but nothing could be seen, except a shadowy four- 

 footed form in the hollow, and in the end we found that 

 the horses must have taken alarm at a wolf or wolves that 

 had come up to the edge of the bank and looked over at 

 us, not being able at first to make out what we were. 



We did not expect to find the horses again that night, 

 but nevertheless took up the broad trail made by the 

 saddles as they dragged through the dewy grass, and fol- 



