AN ASTONISHED BISON. 131 



seemed lances, but at the second resolved into horns. 

 Then it dawned upon our minds that a herd of the 

 great American bison stood before us. What a 

 grateful reduction of lumps in more than one throat, 

 and how the air ran riot in lately congealed lungs ! 



Dobeen declared he thought the professor's "ghosts 

 of the centuries " had been looking down upon us. 



One old fellow, evidently a leader in Buffalo Land, 

 with long patriarchial beard and shaggy forehead, 

 remained in front, his head upraised. His whole at- 

 titude bespoke intense astonishment. ' For years this 

 had been their favorite path between Arkansas and 

 the Platte. Big Creek's green valley had given suc- 

 culent grasses to old and young of the bison tribe 

 from time immemorial. Every hollow had its tradi- 

 tions of fierce wolf fights and Indian ambuscades, 

 and many a stout bull could remember the exact 

 spot where his charge had rescued a mother and her 

 young from the hungry teeth of starving timber 

 wolves. Every wallow, tree, and sheltering ravine 

 were sacred in the traditions of Buffalo Land. The 

 petrified bones of ancestors who fell to sleep there a 

 thousand years before testified to purity of bison 

 blood and pedigree. 



Now all this was changed. Rushing toward their 

 loved valley, they found themselves in the suburbs of 

 a town. Yells of red man and wolf were never so hor- 

 rible as that of the demon flashing along the valley's 

 bed. A great iron path lay at their feet, barring 

 them back into the wilderness. Slowly the shaggy 

 monarch shook his head, as if in doubt whether this 

 were a vision or not; then whirling suddenly, per- 



