LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 75 



hardly took the rough edge off their keen appetites. 

 Although already in the buffalo range, no traces of these 

 animals had yet been seen ; and as the country afforded 

 but little game, and the party did not care to halt and 

 lose time in hunting for it, they moved along hungry 

 and sulky, the themo of conversation being the well- 

 remembered merits of good buffalo meat, of "fat 

 fleece," " hump rib," and " tender loin ; " of delicious 

 " boudins," and marrow bones too good to think of. 

 La Bonte had never seen the lordly animal, and conse- 

 quently but half believed the accounts of the mountain- 

 eers, who described their countless bands as covering 

 the prairie far as the eye could reach, and requiring 

 days of travel to pass through ; but the visions of such 

 dainty and abundant feeding as they descanted on set 

 his mouth watering, and danced before his eyes as he 

 slept supperless, night after night, on the banks of the 

 hungry Platte. 



One morning he had packed his animals before the 

 rest, and was riding a mile in advance of the party, 

 when he saw on one side the trail, looming in the 

 refracted glare which mirages the plains, three large 

 dark objects without shape or form, which rose and fell 

 in the exaggerated light like ships at sea. Doubting 

 what it could be, he approached the strange objects ; and 

 as the refraction disappeared before him, the dark masses 

 assumed a more distinct form, and clearly moved with 

 life. A little nearer, and he made them out : they were 

 buffalo. Thinking to distinguish himself, the greenhorn 

 dismounted from his mule, and quickly hobbled her, 



