THE BUFFALO 



hurry, almost painfully on the alert. In the dark 

 shadow sixty yards ahead stood a half dozen mon- 

 strous bodies all facing our way. They suspected 

 the presence of something unusual, but in the dark- 

 ness and the stillness they could neither identify it 

 nor locate it exactly. I dropped on one knee and 

 snatched my prism glasses to my eyes. The mag- 

 nification enabled me to see partially into the shad- 

 ows. Every one of the group carried the sharply 

 inturned points to the horns: they were all cows! 



An instant after I had made out this fact, they 

 stampeded across our face. The whole band thun- 

 dered and crashed away. 



Desperately we sprang after them, our guns atrail, 

 our bodies stooped low to keep down in the shadow 

 of the earth. And suddenly, without the slightest 

 warning we plumped around a bush square on top of 

 the entire herd. It had stopped and was staring 

 back in our direction. I could see nothing but the 

 wild toss of a hundred pair of horns silhouetted 

 against such of the irregular saffron afterglow as had 

 not been blocked off by the twigs and branches of 

 the thicket. All below was indistinguishable black- 

 ness. 



They stood in a long compact semicircular line 

 thirty yards away, quite still, evidently staring 

 intently into the dusk to find out what had alarmed 



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