A Strange Ride 139 



he decided to take a long journey going 

 northward for several hundred miles, up 

 into the very heart of the buffalo country. 

 The mighty herds that he had seen four 

 years before, while crossing the prairies of 

 Missouri in the schooner, were now no 

 longer seen in such numbers, although the 

 slaughter of the northern herd had not yet 

 begun. But as though in premonition of 

 the coming disaster, they withdrew of their 

 own accord. 



The mighty herd that had thundered 

 past on that eventful night, when the emi- 

 grants lay trembling with fright under the 

 schooner, had gripped the boy's imagina- 

 tion. He longed to see its counterpart 

 again ; to feel once more the solid prairie 

 shake as though with the passing of an 

 earthquake and to see the shaggy frontlets 

 of buffalo bulls as countless as the stars. 



His mother was very loath to let him go. 

 The Indians all along the frontier were of 



