the
medicine-man, and as the lines narrow towards the entrance, the herd,
finding itself hemmed in on both sides, becomes more and more alarmed,
until at length the great beasts plunge on into the pound itself, across
the mouth of which ropes are quickly thrown and barriers raised. Then
commences the slaughter. From the wooded fence around arrows and bullets
are poured into the dense plunging mass of buffalo careering wildly round
the ring. Always going in one direction, with the sun, the poor beasts
race on until not a living thing is left; then, when there is nothing
more to kill, the cutting-up commences, and pemmican-making goes on.

Widely different from this indiscriminate slaughter is the fair hunt on
horseback in the great open plains. The approach, the cautious survey
over some hill-top, the wild charge on the herd, the headlong flight, the
turn to bay, the flight and fall--all this contains a large share of that
excitement which we call by the much abused term sport. It is possible,
however, that many of those who delight in killing placid pheasants and
stoical partridges might enjoy the huge battue of an Indian "pound" in
preference to the wild charge over the sky bound prairie, but, for my
part, not being of the privileged few who breed pheasants at the expense
of peasants (what a difference the "h" makes in Malthusian theories!), I
have been compelled to seek my sport in hot climates instead of in hot
corners, and in the sandy bluffs of Nebraska and the Missouri have drawn
many an hour of keen enjoyment from the long chase of the buffalo. One
evening, shortly before sunset, I was steering my way through the sandy
hills of the Platte Valley, in the State of Nebraska, slowly towards Fort
Kearney; both horse and rider were tired after a long day over sand-bluff
and meadow-land, for buffalo were plenty, and five tongues dangling to
the saddle told that horse, man, and rifle had not been idle. Crossing a
grassy ridge, I suddenly came in sight of three buffalo just emerging
from the broken bluff. Tired as was my horse, the sight of one of these
three animals urged me to one last chase. He was a very large bull,
whose black shaggy mane and dewlaps nearly brushed the short prairie grass
beneath him. I dismounted behind the hill, tightened the saddle-girths,
looked to rifle and cartridge touch, and then remounting rode slowly
over the intervening ridge. As I came in view of the three beasts
thus majestically stalkin