124 HUNTING TRIPS 



herds having been pressed up northwards, 

 In the intervals of tending the cattle work 

 which was then entirely new to them they 

 occupied themselves in hunting buffalo, 

 killing during the winter sixty or seventy, 

 some of them on horseback, but mostly by 

 still-hunting them on foot. Once or twice 

 the bulls when wounded turned to bay ; and 

 a couple of them on one occasion charged 

 one of the men and forced him to take 

 refuge upon a steep isolated butte. At 

 another time the three of them wounded a 

 cow so badly that she broke down and 

 would run no farther, turning to bay in a 

 small clump of thick trees. As this would 

 have been a very bad place in which to skin 

 the body, they wished to get her out and 

 tried to tease her into charging; but she 

 seemed too weak to make the effort. Em- 

 boldened by her apathy one of the men came 

 up close to her behind, while another was 

 standing facing her ; and the former finally 

 entered the grove of trees and poked her 

 with a long stick. This waked her up most 



