1 6 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



fire and a sound night's sleep, wrapped in 

 robes and blankets, they would get up before 

 daybreak, snatch a hurried breakfast, and 

 start off in couples through the chilly dawn. 

 The great beasts were very plentiful ; in the 

 first day's hunt twenty were slain ; but the 

 herds were restless and ever on the move. 

 Sometimes they would be seen right by the 

 camp, and again it would need an all-day's 

 tramp to find them. There was no difficulty 

 in spying them the chief trouble with forest 

 game ; for on the prairie a buffalo makes no 

 effort to hide and its black, shaggy bulk looms 

 up as far as the eye can see. Sometimes they 

 were found in small parties of three or four 

 individuals, sometimes in bands of about two 

 hundred, and again in great herds of many 

 thousands; and solitary old bulls, expelled 

 from the herds, were common. If on broken 

 land, among hills and ravines, there was not 

 much difficulty in approaching from the lee- 

 ward ; for, though the sense of smell in the 

 buffalo is very acute, they do not see well at 

 a distance through their overhanging frontlets 

 of coarse and matted hair. If, as was gener- 

 ally the case, they were out on the open, 

 rolling prairie, the stalking was far more diffi- 

 cult. Every hollow, every earth hummock 

 and sagebush had to be used as cover. The 

 hunter wriggled through the grass flat on his 

 face, pushing himself along for perhaps a 

 quarter of a mile by his toes and fingers, 

 heedless of the spiny cactus. When near 

 enough to the huge, unconscious quarry the 



