290 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



animal himself, as he fed slowly up the course of 

 the ravine, some distance ahead of me. The wind 

 was just right, and no ground could have been 

 better for stalking. Hardly needing to bend down, 

 I walked up behind a small sharp-crested hillock, 

 and peeping over, there below me, not fifty yards 

 off, was a great bison bull. He was walking along, 

 grazing as he walked. His glossy fall coat was in 

 fine trim, and shone in the rays of the sun; while 

 his pride of bearing showed him to be in the lusty 

 vigor of his prime. As I rose above the crest of the 

 hill, he held up his head and cocked his tail in the 

 air. Before he could go off, I put the bullet in 

 behind his shoulder. The wound was an almost 

 immediately fatal one, yet with surprising agility 

 for so large and heavy an animal, he bounded up 

 the opposite side of the ravine, heedless of two 

 more balls, both of which went into his flank and 

 ranged forward, and disappeared over the ridge at 

 a lumbering gallop, the blood pouring from his 

 mouth and nostrils. We knew he could not go far, 

 and trotted leisurely along on his bloody trail ; and 

 in the next gully we found him stark dead, lying 

 almost on his back, having pitched over the side 

 when he tried to go down it. His head was a re- 

 markably fine one, even for a fall buffalo. He was 

 lying in a very bad position, and it was most tedious 

 and tiresome work to cut it off and pack it out. The 

 flesh of a cow or calf is better eating than is that 

 of a bull ; but the so-called hump meat that is, the 

 strip of steak on each side of the backbone is ex- 



