ii2 A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 



who sat on a tough little jenny telling a story, to which we also 

 gave instant ear. 



About noon, he said, while with his flock in the desert, he had 

 seen away across the pastura a black mass come slowly toward him, 

 spreading as it came. Indians it was not ; he rode toward it, and — 

 Madre de Dios / it was a herd of buffaloes. And thereupon every 

 one in the patio listening took fire, and cried Madre de Dios! One of 

 the gentlemen bound down the road to Parras, cooler than the rest, 

 pushed through the excited throng and put to the lad a series of 

 questions. 



" Buffaloes, did you say ? " 



" Yes, sir." 



" How far out were they ? " 



" From here ? " 



"Yes." 



" About three leagues." 



" In what direction were they moving? " 



" From the sun." 



The lad meant to say northward. 



" Was it a big herd ? " 



"Very big, sir. I could not count them." 



"A thousand ? " 



" Oh, many more, sir." 



We were satisfied, my friends and I, and walked away, leaving 

 the patio all calcitrant with excitement. Soon the strangers followed 



us. One of them introduced himself as Don Miguel de (the 



last of the name has slipped my memory), a merchant of Santa 

 Rosalia, going to Parras for a supply of manta — coarse cotton stuff. 



"We have about concluded," he said, "to lie over to-morrow and 

 go hunting. It has been many years since buffalo came so far south ; 

 in fact, we cannot any of us remember to have heard of such a visi- 

 tation in these parts. The opportunity is too rare and good to be 

 lost. Will you go with us, gentlemen ? We shall be delighted with 

 your company." 



My friend, the colonel, had been a soldier from beginning to end 

 of the great war, and earned his title ; now, en passant, his name is a 

 familiar one in Brazil and in the far up-country Bolivia, whose land- 

 lock he is about to break. They know him, too, in the tight little 



