58 The King of the Thundering Herd 



low. Fairy rings they are also sometimes 

 called by the frontiersman. 



But the most striking of all the buffalo 

 signs were the gleaming skulls and the pa- 

 thetic skeletons which the sun and the rains 

 had polished white as ivory, and which 

 could be seen for a long distance on the 

 prairies. These grim reminders of the 

 great herd could often be seen for a mile 

 through the glass and even half that dis- 

 tance with the naked eye, looking like a 

 faint white glimmer. 



One night when it was cold and chilly 

 and the Andersons had had to camp in a 

 very forlorn desert portion of the prairies, 

 far from wood and unfortunately also from 

 water, Mr. Anderson came into camp bring- 

 ing an armful of buffalo chips. These were 

 hard, dry cakes of buffalo dung, that had 

 long baked in the sun. The boys were 

 very much astonished, and wondered what 

 he intended to do with them, but they were 



