254 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



Indian, with a nod and a smile to me, dashed in 

 and out among the buffaloes driving arrow after 

 arrow into victim after victim. The pony that 

 bore me, grateful that I had given him his head, 

 carried me beside a great, lumbering beast, 

 shaggy of coat and fierce of beard. He was so 

 near that I could have laid my hand upon his 

 shoulder and I thrust my revolver against his 

 ribs and fired. As my pony dodged the side 

 thrust of the wounded animal, I was only saved 

 from falling beneath his hoofs by clutching my 

 saddle. 



Near me an Indian boy of ten years, on his 

 first hunt, as graceful on his pony as I was awk- 

 ward on mine, was riding beside a buffalo and 

 making a pincushion of him with arrows which 

 he had not strength to drive into his vitals. 

 When the chase was over and this papoose had 

 worried his victim to death, he strutted about 

 with his blanket worn as if it were the toga of a 

 Roman emperor, and with an expression of dig- 

 nity greater than any emperor ever dared as- 

 sume. 



