THE BUFFALO 



beeste, or anything else especially desirable that 

 might happen along. The gentle slope from the 

 mountains was of grass cut by numerous small 

 ravines grown with low brush. This brush was so 

 scanty as to afford but indifferent cover for any- 

 thing larger than one of the small grass antelopes. 

 All the ravines led down a mile or so to a deeper main 

 watercourse paralleling the mountains. Some water 

 stood in the pools here; and the cover was a little 

 more dense, but consisted at best of but a "stringer" 

 no wider than a city street. Flanking the stringer 

 were scattered high bushes for a few yards; and then 

 the open country. Altogether as unlikely a place 

 for the shade-loving buffalo as could be imagined. 



We collected our Newmanii after rather a long 

 hunt; and just at noon, when the heat of the day 

 began to come on, we wandered down to the water 

 for lunch. Here we found a good clear pool and 

 drank. The boys began to make themselves com- 

 fortable by the water's edge; C. went to superintend 

 the disposal of Billy's mule. Billy had sat down be- 

 neath the shade of the most hospitable of the 

 bushes a hundred feet or so away, and was taking off 

 her veil and gloves. I was carrying to her the lunch 

 box. When I was about halfway from where the 

 boys were drinking at the stream's edge to where 

 she sat, a buffalo bull thrust his head from the bushes 



365 



