AN ASTONISHED BISON. 131 



seemed lances, but at the second resolved into horns. 

 Then it dawned upon our minds that a herd of the 

 great American bison stood before us. What a 

 grateful reduction of lumps in more than one throat, 

 and how the air ran riot in lately congealed lungs ! 



Dobeen declared he thought the professor's "ghosts 

 of the centuries " had been looking down upon us. 



One old fellow, evidently a leader in Buffalo Land, 

 with long patriarchial beard and shaggy forehead, 

 remained in front, his head upraised. His whole at- 

 titude bespoke intense astonishment. For years this 

 had been their favorite path between Arkansas and 

 the Platte. Big Creek's green valley had given suc- 

 culent grasses to old and young of the bison tribe 

 from time immemorial. Every hollow had its tradi- 

 tions of fierce wolf fights and Indian ambuscades, 

 and many a stout bull could remember the exact 

 spot where his charge had rescued a mother and her 

 young from the hungry teeth of starving timber 

 wolves. Every wallow, tree, and sheltering ravine 

 were sacred in the traditions of Bufi^ilo Land. The 

 petrified bones of ancestors who fell to sleep there a 

 thousand years before testified to purity of bison 

 blood and pedigree. 



Now all this was changed. Kushing toward their 

 loved valley, they found themselves in the suburbs of 

 a town. Yells of red man and wolf were never so hor- 

 rible as that of the demon flashins; alom;- the vallev's 



CD CD * 



bed. A great iron path lay at their feet, barring 

 them back into the wilderness. Slowly the shaggy 

 monarch shook his head, as if in doubt whether this 

 were a vision or not ; then whirling suddenly, per- 



