258 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
terrible and vicious-looking, but, in reality, terrified and timid 
Bisons; or, after a faster and longer gallop, of the tossed antlers 
and sleek coats of the fleeter Elks. 
Of the former, he picks out the fattest cows, and galloping up 
alongside of the huge, walloping, unwieldy mountain of flesh, 
till he is, as a sailor would say, yard-arm and yard-arm with his 
enemy, discharges his double gun, loaded with buckshot—for 
my use, I would choose Ely’s wire cartridges of the largest slugs 
—or the heavy holster pistols—one or other of which weapons, 
for the horse chase, is considered preferable to the rifle—under 
the foreshoulder, until it falls, when he passes onward to ano¬ 
ther, and another, leaving the fallen victims to be slaughtered 
by the laggards in the rear, and often killing his half score of 
these vast cattle of the wilderness, in a chase of a few hours’ 
duration. 
A wounded bull will, it is true, occasionally turn and charge, 
but his lumbering rush is easily avoided by the swift and agile 
swerve of the trained charger, which is generally brokep to 
wheel aside the instant the shot is fired; and the danger, in truth, 
is infinitely small, when considered in reference to the gigantic 
bulk, immense power, and formidable appearance of the Bison 
bulls. 
In fact, all the peril consists in the twofold risk of the rider, if 
dismounted by the action of firing, at the moment of the courser’s 
swerving, being cast upon the horns, or under feet of the infu¬ 
riate bull; and of the horse, in the act of springing sideways 
from the charge of one bull, crossing the counter of another, 
unseen, so close as to be overthrown by him. 
The charge of the Bison is, however, but a momentary spirt, 
and is rarely protracted above a few paces in length,—nor are 
instances wanting in which a rider, dismounted, as I have de¬ 
scribed, and cast sprawling on the earth within ten feet of the 
enraged monster, has succeeded in deterring the giant from his 
attack by the mere majesty of the human aspect, and the power 
of the human eye, which, when calm and undaunted, cannot, it 
would seem, be endured by any of the inferior creation. An 
