50 THE BISON. 



peculiar make, feathering, or colouring, of the fatal 

 shaft will tell plainly enough to Indian eyes to whom 

 the game belongs. AMien the hunt is over, the labours 

 of the women commence ; and the squaw will have no 

 difficulty in selecting her husband's game. When the 

 skin, the tongue, and the hump, have been taken from 

 the carcase the squaws deliver the arrows to the owners, 

 and if any have been badly shot so that it required a 

 second shaft to kill the huge game, or if any have been 

 wasted in mere flesh wounds, the unsuccessful hunter is 

 exposed to jeers and sarcasm, from which he is only too 

 glad to escape by hiding himself. 



There goes a youth following a huge bison. Being 

 light in "weight and well-mounted, he is enabled 

 speedily to range alongside the shaggy monster. It 

 is, perhaps, his first buffalo-hunt ; and although he 

 understands the theory of the chase well enough, 

 practice is wanting. His looks betray his excitement. 

 His tawny cheeks are flushed with anxiety. But al- 

 though he is evidently bent on distinguishing himself, 

 his frame seems to show a lack of the muscle neces- 

 sary to propel the death-dealing shafts with certainty 

 of success. 



He fits his arrow and draws the bowstring ; but either 

 from want of force or from nervousness, it glances from 

 a rib of the buffalo and runs up under the skin where 

 it hangs, swinging backward and forward with every 

 motion of the great game. The expression of the bull's 



