LIFEINTHEFARWEST. 71 



believed the accounts of the mountaineers, who described their 

 countless bands as covering the prairie far as the eye could reach, 

 and requiring days of travel to pass through ; but the visions of 

 such dainty and abundant feeding as they descanted on set his 

 mouth vi^atering, and danced before his eyes as he slept supperless, 

 night after night, on the banks of the hungry Platte. 



One morning he had packed his animals before the rest, and 

 was riding a mile in advance of the party, when he saw on one 

 side the trail, looming in the refracted glare which mirages the 

 plains, three large dark objects without shape or form, which rose 

 and fell in the exaggerated light like ships at sea. Doubting what 

 it could be, he approached the strange objects ; and as the refrac- 

 tion disappeared before him, the dark masses assumed a more dis- 

 tinct form, and clearly moved with life. A little nearer, and he 

 made them out — they were buffalo. Thinking to distinguish him- 

 self, the greenhorn dismounted from his mule, and quickly hobbled 

 her, throwing his lasso on the ground to trail behind when he 

 wished to catch her. Then, rifle in hand, he approached the 

 huge animals, and, being a good hunter, knew well to take advant- 

 age of the inequalities of the ground and face the wind ; by which 

 means he crawled at length to within forty yards of the buffalo, 

 which quietly cropped the grass, unconscious of danger. Now, 

 for the first time, he gazed upon the noble beast he had so often 

 heard of, and longed to see. With coal-black beard sweeping the 

 ground as he fed, an enormous bull was in advance of the others^ 

 his wild brilliant eyes peering from an immense mass of shaggy 

 hair, which covered his neck and shoulder. From this point his 

 skin was smooth as one's hand, a sleek and shining dun, and his 

 ribs were well covered with shaking flesh. While leisurely crop- 

 ping the short curly grass he occasionally lifted his tail into the 

 air, and stamped his foot as a fly or musquito annoyed him — flap- 

 ping the intruder with his tail, or snatching at the itching part 

 with his ponderous head. 



