ALL UP WITH THE OLD BULL. 229 



vestment is at once formed, and a system of worrying 

 adopted. No rest now for the old bull. He can not 

 lie down, or the beasts of prey will swarm upon him. 

 Again and again he charges the foe, each time clear- 

 ing a passage readily, but only to have it close again 

 almost instantly. In these resultless sorties the 

 garrison is fast using up its material of war. The 

 ammunition is getting short which fires the old war- 

 rior, and sends the black horns, like a battering-ram, 

 right and left among his foes. As long as he keeps 

 his feet he lives, though hemmed in closely by the snap- 

 ping and snarling multitude. The tenacity of one of 

 these patriarchs is wonderful. For a whole life-time 

 chief of the brutes on his native plains, he has grown 

 up surrounded by wolves. Not fearing them himself, 

 he has easily defended the cows and calves. An 

 attempted siege would once have been but sport to 

 him, and it seems difficult for the brain in the thick 

 skull to understand that Time, like a vampire, has 

 been sucking the juices from his joints and the blood 

 from his veins. 



"Hired out at length, the old bull begins to totter, 

 and his knees to shake from sheer exhaustion. His 

 shakiness is as fatal as that of a Wall Street bull. 

 As he lies down the wolves are upon him. They are 

 clinging to the shaggy form, like blood-hounds, before 

 it has even sunk to the sod, and the victim never 

 rises again. 



The cayotes are very cowardly, and when carcasses 

 are plenty, sleep during the day in their holes, which 

 are generally dug into the sides of some ravine. If 

 found during the hours of light, it is usually skulking 



