20 IMMENSE HERDS OF BUFFALOES. 



within about two hundred yards. Here we pulled up some 

 grass which we stuck in our hat-bands, and held up some in 

 our hands in the form of a fan, and in this way we made 

 another fifty yards, when seeing the antelope were beginning 

 to get suspicious, we both of us fired, the only result being that 

 something seemed to fall from one of them, and on reaching 

 the spot we found a straight line of white hair, the only 



explanation of which was that the antelope C fired at, 



having stood broadside to him, he must have made a very bad 

 shot, and his bullet grazed the animal behind, where he is 

 covered with white hair, and cut off a line of it. I had made 

 a clean miss, I suppose from excitement. 



For some days we saw only scattered buffaloes, but as we 

 approached the Missouri they were in good sized bands, and 

 towards evening one day, we saw an immense number of them 

 in the distance. It being too late to do much that day, we 

 camped, and busied ourselves all the evening in getting things 

 ready for a run on the following morning. 



Laronde gave us a great deal of advice as to how we ought 

 to behave under all imaginable circumstances, but in the 

 excitement of a run, who can think of all this ? and it would 

 not be half so much fun if you could remember all yonr 

 instructions ; the getting into scrapes and out of them in your 

 own way being the best part of it. 



Early the next morning we were off, M and C armed 



as they were before, but I carried my twelve-bore breech-loader, 

 having found it impossible to load the other gun on horseback 

 without pulling up. The herd was where we had seen it on 

 the previous evening, and by reconnoitring from a high mound 

 we found a small ravine, and riding down it we got within 



