36 OX THE FRONTIER. 



excellent sport, and yet did not drive the buffaloes off the 

 range. 



A small flock of antelope frequented the bottom, and some 

 of them were killed by careful stalking and flagging. A 

 chase after them on horseback was also attempted, and the 

 fact revealed that they completely had the heels of us. A 

 large and densely- wooded island was also discovered some tea 

 miles up the river, and found to be the head-quarters of a 

 numerous'drove of turkeys, whose lives were conspired against 

 on many a night, but which conspiracies all ended in smoke 

 (tobacco). We had killed turkeys before, it was a long way 

 to go, buffaloes were what we were after, so the turkeys 

 remained unmolested. 



There was one thing bothered us. During the daytime 

 someone was always in camp, of course, and though he had 

 his attention more or less constantly directed to the river, he 

 never saw a fish rise, and yet the guard at night constantly 

 heard the splash of fish rising, and large fish. It could be 

 nothing else, the noise was unmistakable. 



Now, we had never heard of fish of purely nocturnal 

 habits. We knew there were such things as cat-fish we 

 had eaten them but cat-fish do not rise to the fly; besides, 

 " what's in a name ? " A cat-fish is not obliged to hunt for 

 its food at night because a cat does, any more than he is 

 obliged to catch mice and drink milk. That clearly was 

 not " how the cat jumped." So one bright night, near the 

 full of the moon, a concealed spy was set to watch the 

 river. He discovered the truth. The Republican was full 

 of beavers, who nightly enjoyed their aquatic gambols, and 

 it was the splash of their big broad tails on the surface of 



