282 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



carry them, penetrating the thickest ranks of the 

 buffaloes, and soon disappearing behind a thick 

 cloud of dust. The buffaloes wavered and began to 

 rush about, uttering the most formidable bellowings. 

 To see the mass of heads tossing about, you would 

 have thought it a sea in a storm. The hunters 

 darted about, choosing the fattest cows, and sepa- 

 rating them from the rest of the herd, when they 

 killed them without difficulty : and when the combat 

 was over, our waggons advanced to the field of battle 

 and returned heavily laden with the choicest morsels 

 of the buffaloes. 



" For two days afterwards we had to send our 

 hunters ahead to clear the road ; and as fast as the 

 herd was dispersed in front, it collected again 

 behind us, and even mixed with our mules and 

 reserve horses. In spite of all our precautions, five 

 of our animals have escaped and joined the wild 

 beasts, and we have endeavoured in vain to recover 

 them by searching among the forest of horns, and 

 we have been obliged to abandon our deserters to 

 the nomad life of the prairies." 



I resume my story. Life in the prairies has in 

 it a great deal of sameness, and yet, in spite of its 

 monotony, it has a charm for the true sportsman 

 so irresistible that, as I write these lines, seated at 

 my comfortable desk, and surrounded by all those 

 appliances of civilisation which render a bachelor's 



