THE PROFESSOR ENTHRONED. 261 



I have the authority of all for the deliberate state- 

 ment that the bull would have been riddled before 

 moving a foot had not the cartridges suddenl}' given 

 out. 



The effort of getting up had sent the mass of blood 

 collected from inward bleeding surging out of the buf- 

 falo's nose, and, as we looked back, he was tottering 

 feebly, and an instant afterward fell to the ground. 

 There was no doubt now of his death, and we 

 swarmed upon and around him. He was an im- 

 mense old fellow, and his hide fairly covered with 

 the scars of past battles. Inasmuch as this was our 

 first trophy, it was determined to take his skin, and 

 we forthwith seated the Professor on his great shaggy 

 neck, with the horns forming arms for an impromptu 

 hunter's throne. From thence he wrote upon leaves 

 from his note-book a letter to his class at the East, 

 which he permitted me to copy. I introduce it here, 

 as showing that the blood of even a savan pul- 

 sates warmly amid such circumstances as now sur- 

 rounded us. 



" On a Buffalo, in the 

 Year of my Happiness, One. 



1 



"Dear Class — I know the staid and quiet habits 

 that characterize all of you, and that you are not 

 given to hard riding and buffalo hunting. Yet this 

 prairie air, with its rich fragrance and wild freeness, 

 would give a new circulation to the blood of each one 

 of you. Like a gale at sea, the breeze sweeps against 

 one's cheeks, and the great billows of land rise on 

 every side, as mountains of troubled ocean Why 



