266 The Lordly Buffalo. 



that we were chilled through, and our teeth chattered be- 

 hind our blue lips. To crown my misfortunes, I now 

 made one of those misses which a man to his dying day 

 always looks back upon with wonder and regret. The 

 rain was beating in my eyes, and the drops stood out in 

 the sights of the rifle so that I could hardly draw a bead ; 

 and I either overshot or else at the last moment must have 

 given a nervous jerk and pulled the rifle clear off the mark. 

 At any rate I missed clean, and the whole band plunged 

 down into a hollow and were off before, with my stiffened 

 and numbed fingers, I could get another shot ; and in wet, 

 sullen misery we plodded back to the ponies. 



All that day the rain continued, and we passed another 

 wretched night. Next morning, however, it had cleared 

 off, and as the sun rose brightly we forgot our hunger and 

 sleepiness, and rode cheerily off up a large dry creek, in 

 whose bottom pools of rain-water still stood. During the 

 morning, however, our ill-luck continued. My com- 

 panion's horse almost trod on a rattlesnake, and narrowly 

 escaped being bitten. While riding along the face of a 

 steeply-inclined bluff the sandy soil broke away under the 

 ponies' hoofs, and we slid and rolled down to the bottom, 

 where we came to in a heap, horses and men. Then 

 while galloping through a brush-covered bottom my pony 

 put both forefeet in a hole made by the falling and uproot- 

 ing of a tree, and turned a complete somersault, pitching 

 me a good ten feet beyond his head. And finally, while 

 crossing what looked like the hard bed of a dry creek, the 

 earth gave way under my horse as if he had stepped on a 

 trap-door, and let him down to his withers in soft, sticky 



