his part of the journey was
comparatively easy. In a few days now they reached the western base of
the hills, and entered a lovely plain. Here, for the first time, the new
hunters saw the finest of western game--a herd of buffaloes. From the
skirt of the wood at the end of the plain, a countless troop of these
animals came rushing over it. The men were delighted; they had heard of
these noble beasts of the forest, but none of them, except Finley, had
ever seen one. As the mass came tramping toward them, they stood gazing
in astonishment. Finley, who knew that men were sometimes trampled to
death by these moving troops, kept his eye steadily upon the herd until
the foremost was within rifle-shot; he then levelled his gun, and the
leader fell dead. With a wild bellow the herd parted on each side of the
fallen animal, and went scampering through the plain. There seemed no end
to the number, as they still came rushing from the wood. The mass
appeared closing again in a solid body, when he seized Holden's rifle,
and shot another. Now they were completely routed; branching off on the
two sides of the plain, they went bellowing and tearing past them. "An
amazing country, this!" cried Boone; "who ever beheld such an abundance?"
The camp was once more soon built, a blazing fire made, and, for the
first time in their lives, five of these men sat down to a supper of
buffalo-meat. They talked of their new country, the quantity of game, and
how joyously they would roam through the huge forests, until the night
had worn far away.

The next morning, after breakfast, they packed up such portions of the
animals as they could readily carry, and resumed their march. In a little
time they reached Red river. Here Finley began to feel more at home, for
on this river he had lived. Following the course of the stream, ere long
they came to the place which had been his trading-post with the Indians.
They had been more than a month reaching this point, and, naturally
enough, were wearied. Finley, too, could no longer guide them; and here,
for the present, they determined to halt again. It was now the seventh
day of June.

As this was to be their headquarters for some time, they built at once a
substantial log cabin. They were now fairly in the wilds of Kentucky; and
remembering that the whole region was the fighting-ground of the
wandering Indians, the cabin was built not only to protect them from the
weather, but to answer as a sort of fort aga