A Buffalo Story 



eat, but you might take his tongue." His smile 

 was changed to smothered laughter when he 

 saw me attempting to carve up the corners 

 of the animal's mouth in order to take the 

 tongue out between the teeth. He dis- 

 mounted, and with a single cut beneath the 

 under jaw showed me how to take out the 

 tongue properly. 



As evening came on, small groups of buf- 

 falo were seen dotting the plain. At sunrise 

 we saw hundreds where the night before 

 there had been only dozens. From this point 

 on to Fort Wallace, we were never out of 

 sight of these nomads of the " Great Ameri- 

 can Desert." From the higher points of our 

 route, when the horizon was distant from ten 

 to twenty miles, hundreds of thousands were 

 visible at the same instant. They were not 

 bunched together as cattle are, in droves, 

 but were spread out with great regularity 

 over the entire face of the land. 



On the third day of our march, a severe 

 snow-storm set in, accompanied by a fierce 

 north wind a genuine "norther." This 

 night we were compelled to leave the road 

 and go to the Smoky Hill River for water. 



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