444 Hl.NTIlfQ ADVENTURES. 



behin I to guard such goods, chattels, and provisions as would hav 

 proved useless to have been carried forward, and as it was expected 

 that we should be enabled to return to the encampment before night- 

 fall, he was directed to hold all things in readiness, and more espe- 

 cially to withstand temptation in keeping his mouth from the bung 

 of my whisky-jug. In an extended line, or by the familiar descrip- 

 tion of Indian file, we began this march as usual just at ruddy day- 

 break, and were not far advanced on the great prairie stretching be- 

 fore us like a vast and limitless ocean, when Blackwolf, who headed 

 the force, reined in his dark iron-gray steed with a sudden jerk 

 which sent him nearly upon his haunches. In an instant all was 

 commotion. Arrows were drawn from their quivers, bow-strings 

 were tied and thrummed, lances poised, and ever}' eye directed to 

 the spot on which the chief fixed his earnest and flashing gaze. 



Not two miles distant, and feeding in fancied security on a piece 

 of table land as level as a bowling-green, a large herd of buffalo was 

 descried, looking at the distance like so many black specks on the 

 waste. Some I could perceive were lying down, and the scene alto- 

 gether may be compared, without violence to the imagination, to 

 what the tourist may witness by the aid of railways, within a few hours 

 of any of our principal cities, and where no dread exists of Pawnees 

 and Camanches. 



It was decided that we should head the herd, and endeavor to 

 drive them back toward the encampment, in order to save as little 

 time and trouble as possible in getting the meat and skins to that 

 omarter. In prosecuting this scheme we had to make a wide circle 

 from the direct course, and, indeed, it would have been impossible to 

 approach them in any other way, as we were down the wind, and their 

 powers of scent, like those given to the denizens of the wild in ge- 

 neral, are of the most acute order. 



" You know, major," observed Hawkeye, as he turned our horses 

 considerably to the left, for the purpose of covering our circumvent- 

 ing manoeuvre under the screen of two lines of bluffs running parallel 

 with each other, " You know, major," repeated he, with a slight 

 twinkle of satire in his snake-like eyes, " for all de Britishers dat 

 come here, say 'you know' to every thing, dat buffa/o smell Indian 



