280 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



would see him. His tracks were easily followed 

 as long as he had kept to the soft creek bottom, 

 crossing and recrossing the narrow wet ditch which 

 wound its way through it; but when he left this 

 and turned up a winding coulie that branched out 

 in every direction, his hoofs scarcely made any 

 marks in the hard ground. We rode up the ravine, 

 carefully examining the soil for nearly half an hour, 

 however; finally, as we passed the mouth of a little 

 side coulie, there was a plunge and crackle through 

 the bushes at its head, and a shabby-looking old bull 

 bison galloped out of it and, without an instant's 

 hesitation, plunged over a steep bank into a patch 

 of rotten, broken ground which led around the base 

 of a high butte. So quickly did he disappear that 

 we had not time to dismount and fire. Spurring our 

 horses we galloped up to the brink of the cliff down 

 which he had plunged; it was remarkable that he 

 should have gone down it unhurt. From where we 

 stood we could see nothing; so, getting our horses 

 over the broken ground as fast as possible, we ran 

 to the butte and rode round it, only to see the buf- 

 falo come out of the broken land and climb up the 

 side of another butte over a quarter of a mile off. 

 In spite of his great weight and cumbersome, heavy- 

 looking gait, he climbed up the steep bluff with ease 

 and even agility, and when he had reached the ridge 

 stood and looked back at us for a moment; while 

 so doing he held his head high up, and at that dis- 

 tance his great shaggy mane and huge fore-quarter 

 made him look like a lion. In another second he 



