31 ON THE FRONTIER. 



hunting than we did, one of us would have come to grief in 

 that day's chase. 



Slowly we returned to camp. We were by no means a 

 triumphant procession : we were more like a funeral one ; 

 but, alas ! without the corpse. The intended corpse had 

 escaped. 



In due time we arrived at the brow of the bluff, and 

 looked in the direction of our camp. On the plain, about 

 half a mile from it, lay a dark object, round which some 

 smaller ones were moving busily about. What did it 

 mean ? One of the specks was presently made out to be 

 a horse, the two others, men, but the biggest one puzzled 

 us. It was stationary, did not seem to have any shape ; 

 the men kept going from it to the horse and back again ; 

 by-and-by they started off, leading the horse ; evidently 

 it was carrying something, or one of them would be riding 

 it. Was the object lying on the plain could it be a 

 dead buffalo ? Had we boasted and bragged, schemed and 

 crawled, galloped our good horses to a stand-still, turned 

 our bullets loose in vain, like lunatics 1 and were we to go 

 back with a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing, 

 to find, that while we had been " cavorting " around to no 

 earthly purpose, the boys in camp had " potted " a buffalo, 

 and supplied our larder with meat we had failed to get ? 

 But such we found had been the case. A small band had 

 come to the river to drink, had been cleverly ambushed on 

 their return by our artist in soup, one of them killed in his 

 tracks by a well-directed bullet. Verily the laugh was 

 against us ! But there was attendant consolation : buffalo 

 steaks for dinner, and marrow-bones ! Marrow-bones with 



