268 . THE STRICKEN BULLS. 



the hump, as well as the elbow and brisket being con 

 cealed by the unusually long grass, I hit the bison too 

 high, which was immediately evident by a gush of blood 

 about mid-way in the body, and if in a right line for the 

 heart, still much too high. To our astonishment, the in 

 stant my rifle was off, a fourth bull, still larger than the 

 other three, seemed to rise up out of the earth, and Bay 

 ard fired and struck him, but too much behind, as the bull 

 was going obliquely away. Their backs being all to me 

 in flight when I caught up my carbine, I reserved the 

 fire, and made a sign for our horses. On their arriving 

 I handed my Maiiton rifle to Phill, and gave Sylph the 

 office for a run, which she was too happy to obey. 



I soon found out, ere I had gone fifty yards, that these 

 four old bulls had been down in a small rill of water, 

 which was very deep, among high grass, and not percep 

 tible to us from a distance ; and this was the reason for 

 three of these bisons being at one time completely out of 

 sight, and for the hump of the fourth alone appearing. 

 Sylph was soon over the water-course, and coming up 

 hand- over-hand with her game, when, before I ran along 

 side, I saw that the bull I had stricken in the right side 

 the heavy round ball having made a most umnistake- 

 able wound was dropping behind the others, and that 

 the immense beast, the king of them all, who got out of 

 the water on the first fire, and whom Bayard had hit, 

 was doing the same. These two wounded bulls kept at 

 about the same pace close together and nearly side by 

 side, the one I had wounded being about a head in 

 advance. Sylph, keeping them on the left, went up 

 to them well, though slightly swerving and shaking her 

 head and shoulders on the rising of the carbine to fire? 

 and I shot at the bull I had previously wounded ; but, 



