LAMENESS OF MR. BAYARD'S SECOND HORSE. 249 



in killing him, so that my servant George Bromfield had 

 helped to despatch a bison for the first time in his life. 

 We found the camp pitched on a creek of running water, 

 on which the waggons were ordered to march when we 

 commenced hunting, but they had selected a spot not 

 very well provided with fuel. Of beef we had now plenty, 

 for on this the first day of sighting buffalo we had killed 

 three, besides a few prairie grouse picked up in the morn 

 ing. From first to last I had also viewed two wolves. We 

 needed a good supply of fresh meat, for in all we were, 

 if I recollect rightly, four or five and twenty men. 



On reaching my tent, I divested myself of my belt and 

 ammunition, and lay down for half an hour on my bed, 

 drinking at the same time a large glass of very fair 

 sherry, and before dinner was ready I felt greatly refresh 

 ed and as hungry as a man could be who had no more of 

 a fever left than weakness and the appetite which such 

 attacks when surmounted very often occasion. I was still 

 in my tent when little Willie came to ask me to come and 

 look at Bayard's horse, who was very lame, and I hast 

 ened out accordingly. To my deep regret I saw that 

 nice steed with a knee swollen to twice its size, the effects, 

 as I at once declared, of a severe kick. " Oh, no," the 

 men said, " it could not be a blow, it must be a strain ; " 

 of course they said so, because their orders were, never to 

 let the animals reach each other from their respective picket- 

 pins. We, Bayard and myself, however, decided that it 

 was a blow from the heels of a mule they are always 

 handy in that way so orders were given for an immediate 

 hot fomentation with vinegar. Mr Bayard also bled his 

 horse from the mouth, breathing a vein elsewhere not being 

 understood. We then dined in my tent, and did ample 

 justice to bison soup, broiled hump rib, grouse, and other 



