SYCE'S ADVENTURE 293 



rush in I cannot tell. He was, certainly twice, as Kipling 

 would say, "anxious." He turned to one side of his own 

 spoor, went back on his track, lay by the trail we had to 

 creep slowly and cautiously along, as we followed the blood 

 sign, and when thus, all unconscious of his presence within 

 a few feet of us, we came near to where he stood, he rushed 

 off, not on to us. 



I had had poor luck in finding buffalo, or I should not 

 have pressed after this one as I did in such an exceedingly 

 dangerous place. If my bullets had not been changed he 

 could not have gone a mile and I should have got him, or he 

 might, under the circumstances, have got me. But of 

 one thing I satisfied myself of on this and on another occa- 

 sion, namely, that herds of buffalo will not charge over 

 standing men. 



It had been a hard day, I was weary with continual 

 crawling and stooping. And my easy chair by the camp 

 fire was a real luxury. As I sat and looked long that night 

 into the glowing embers of our thornwood fire, I seemed to 

 see another herd in another land of very different buffalo, 

 not at all like these fierce black denizens of the East African 

 jungle, but a noble and useful beast that once in countless 

 thousands roamed the broad prairies and mountain lands of 

 our own far West. I saw again the buffalo of long ago, 

 as I saw them on that first fresh, frosty September morning 

 in 1868. 



"I speak of one, from many singled out, 

 One of those blissful days that cannot die," 



when before me stretched the boundless yellow prairie 

 and behind me rose the run. The sky was blue, as I think 

 you see it only in our Autumn Indian Summer days. And 

 the air! Well, I was only eighteen and it went to my head. 

 Since I had been able to read anything, I had pored over 

 Ballentine's "Dog Crusoe" and other Western story books 



