80 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



only the skin, tongue, and hump of the buffalo. But 

 what the white hunter left the Indian took, making 

 pemmican by pounding the meat with tallow, drying 

 thinly-shaved slices into &quot; jerked &quot; meat, getting thread 

 from the buffalo sinews and implements of the chase 

 from the bones. 



The gathering of the spoils was not the least dan 

 gerous part of the buffalo-hunt. Many an apparently 

 lifeless buffalo has lunged up in a death-throe that has 

 cost the hunter dear. The mounted police officer of 

 whom mention has been made was once camping with 

 a patrol party along the international line between 

 Idaho and Canada. Among the hunting stories told 

 over the camp-fire was that of the Indian pursued by 

 the wounded buffalo. Scarcely had the colonel finished 

 his anecdote when a great hulking buffalo rose to the 

 crest of a hillock not a gunshot away. 



&quot; Come on, men ! Let us all have a shot,&quot; cried the 

 colonel, grasping his rifle. 



The buffalo dropped at the first rifle-crack, and the 

 men scrambled pell-mell up the hill to see whose bullet 

 had struck vital. Just as they stooped over the fallen 

 buffalo it lunged up with an angry snort. 



The story of the pursued Indian was still fresh in 

 all minds. The colonel is the only man of the party 

 honest enough to tell what happened next. He de 

 clares if breath had not given out every man would have 

 run till he dropped over the horizon, like the Indian and 

 the buffalo. 



And when they plucked up courage to go back, the 

 buffalo was dead as a stone. 



