292 BIG GAME OF NOKTH AMERICA. 



Following up a deep ravine, or valley, for a couple of 

 miles, straggling Buffaloes began to appear on the hills, and 

 a herd of several hundred came in sight on the divide to 

 the right. A band equally large soon showed up on the 

 divide to the left. 



This began to look like business, and I stopped to plan 

 an approach to the strange game, of whose habits I knew 

 next to nothing, when I saw two large bulls leave the herd 

 on the right and walk down the hill as though intending 

 to cross the valley to the herd on my left. 



Here was my opportunity. They would evidently cross 

 the ravine half a mile in front of me, yet, as they were 

 nearly a mile distant, I would have plenty of time to run 

 forward, under cover of the bank, and secrete myself in 

 front of them. Hurrying forward, I took position where 

 I thought they would cross, and, not without consider- 

 able anxiety, awaited their approach. There was no 

 chance of escaping the possible charge of a wounded 

 bull should he sight me, nor could the oldest man in 

 America tell where the Gallagher would carrom on the 

 Buffalo should he be either more or less than one hundred 

 yards distant. 



After a long time, and when I began to hope that they 

 had turned back, they suddenly appeared in the ravine 

 two hundred yards above me. One was the hardest-looking 

 old "moss-back" — a term applied to the very old bulls, 

 which were late in shedding their old coat of hair — I have 

 ever seen; while the other was a splendid specimen — full 

 grown, glossy black, fat and round — and I determined, as he 

 stepped quickly across the bottom of the ravine and began 

 climbing the opposite hill, to get him if possible. 



It was useless to fire at that distance, so, observing that 

 they were keeping on the crest of a hog's back or ridge that 

 rose between two small ravines tributary to the main one, 

 I crept forward into the little ravine running parallel with 

 their line of march, and, as they slowly climbed to the 

 high plateau above, vainly tried to get a shot at the big, 

 black fellow without being seen by them. 



