e
knife, spliced firmly to the muzzle, rendered it a formidable weapon, so
that in a few minutes I stood in a better attitude than I had assumed
for hours before.

"The affair soon came to an issue. As I had anticipated, by showing
myself a little to one side of the tree, the bull sprang forward, and I
was enabled, by a dexterous thrust, to plant the knife between his ribs.
It entered his heart, and the next moment I saw him rolling over, and
kicking the crimsoned snow around him in the struggles of death.

"I had scarcely completed my victory, when a loud whoop sounded in my
ears, and looking up, I saw my friend making towards me across the open
ground. He had completed his chase, having killed all three, cut them
up, and hung their meat upon the trees, to be sent for on our return to
the house.

"By his aid the bull was disposed of in a similar manner; and being now
satisfied with our day's sport--though my friend very much regretted the
loss of his fine dog--we commenced shuffling homeward."

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE PRAIRIE-WOLF AND WOLF-KILLER.

After crossing the Marais de Cygnes River the country became much more
open. There was a mixture of timber and prairie-land--the latter,
however, constantly gaining the ascendancy as we advanced farther west.
The openings became larger, until they assumed the appearance of vast
meadows, inclosed by groves, that at a distance resembled great hedges.
Now and then there were copses that stood apart from the larger tracts
of forests, looking like islands upon the surface of a green sea, and by
the name of "islands" these detached groves are known among the hunters
and other denizens of prairie-land. Sometimes the surface was
undulating or, as it is there termed, "rolling," and our road was
varied, ascending or descending, as we crossed the gentle declivities.
The timber through which we had up to this time been passing consisted
of ash, burr oak, black walnut, chestnut oak, buck eye, the American
elm, hickory, hackberry, sumach, and, in low moist places, the sycamore,
and long-leaved willow. These trees, with many others, form the
principal growth of the large forests, upon the banks of the
Mississippi, both cast and west.

As we advanced westward, Besancon called our attention to the fact, that
all these kinds of timber, one by one, disappeared from the landscape,
and in their place a single species alone made up the larger growth of
the forest. This was th