HUNTING THE BISON. 449 



successive j<jars as the chieftain of his clan. But in a luckless lioui 

 the Osage hunters espied his whereabouts, and within a short half 

 hour of the discovery, not a single head lived, not a remnant was left. 



So occupied and engrossed had I been "with my own sport, that I 

 had taken no interest in what was going on with my companions; 

 but upon making a sweep of the horizon, I perceived a few in sight, 

 scattered here and there, evidently occupied with the carcasses of 

 the slain. Climbing again into the saddle, I rode to the nearest> 

 and found Firefly busily engaged in stripping a skin from a cow, and 

 as it smoked from his bloody fingers, I must own, a slight nausea 

 affected the regions of my stomach. Hot, naked, and fierce from ex- 

 citement, the savage was tearing away at his butchering task, and I 

 was glad to turn aside from the gory and sickening sight. 



The rest, he informed me, I should find similarly employed with 

 himself, as the whole herd was killed, and seven had fallen to his bow. 

 He boasted of having used but a single arrow to each head ; but I 

 subsequently found this was not quite in accordance with the truth, 

 although the first three had fallen as he described, at the first shot, 

 and his quiver proved that many shafts had not been thrown away. 



Upon leaving Firefly at his truly dirty work, I put Nigger to a 

 gentle canter, and soon passed several carcasses of the buffaloes 

 stretched on the greensward, where they had fallen dead, or been 

 disabled by the arrow, and subsequently lanced by the hunters who 

 swept in the trail of the bowmen. 



Like flies collecting around carrion, so do the birds and beasts of 

 prey hcver and slink towards the scene of carnage on the prairie 

 from every quarter, and with marvellous powers discover the spot 

 where their feast is prepared. In incredible numbers, ravens, buz- 

 zards, crows, and others of the same large family, now wheeled, 

 screaming most discordantly in the air, and packs of wolves appeared 

 howling impatient for the banquet. The appearance of the animals 

 in the distance is that of a flock of sheep, being generally perfectly 

 white ; but among some dozen or fifteen occupied a bluff in the 

 course I was taking, and howling a most dismal chorus, I perceived 

 a jet black member, whose skin I felt desirous of possessing. It ia 

 not, however, an easy task to get on close term? with a wolf, unlesi 



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