mpts to advance;
hopeless, like wandering in a subtle maze. Bison to the right of us,
bison to the left of us, an uncounted swarm behind us, and as many
before--but they neither bellowed nor thundered; they passed like
phantoms in the night, soundlessly save for the muffled trampling of
cloven hoofs, and here and there upon occasion hoarse coughings that
were strangled by the wind.

And we rode as silently as the bison marched. For each one of us had
seen that one-minded pilgrimage of the brown cattle take place in moons
gone by. I recalled a time when a trail-herd lay on the Platte and the
buffalo barred their passing for two days--even made fourteen riders and
three thousand Texas steers give ground. Is it not history that the St.
Louis-Benton river-boats backed water when the bison crossed the
Missouri in the spring and fall? Remembering these, and other times that
the herds had gathered and swept over the plains, a plague of monstrous
locusts, pushing aside men and freight-trains, I knew what would happen
should the buffalo close their ranks, marshal the scattered groups into
closer formation, quicken the pace of the multitude that poured down
from the north. And presently it happened.

Insensibly the number of moving bodies increased. The consolidation was
imperceptible in the murk, but nevertheless it took place. We ceased to
find clear spaces where we could gallop; a trot became impossible. We
were hemmed in. A rank animal odor mingled with the taint of smoke.
Gradually the muffled beat of hoofs grew more pronounced, a shuffling
monotone that filled the night. We were mere atoms in a vast wave of
horn and bone and flesh that bore us onward as the tide floats
driftwood.

The belated moon stole up from its lair, hovered above the sky-line, a
gaudy orange sphere in the haze of smoke. It shed a tenuous glimmer on
the sea of bison that had engulfed us; and at the half-revealed sight
MacRae lifted his clenched hands above his head and cursed the
circumstance that had brought us to such extremity. That was the first
and only time I knew him to lose his poise, his natural repression.
Still water runs deep, they say; and a glacial cap may conceal
subterranean fires. Trite similes, I grant you--but, ah, how true. The
good Lord help those phlegmatics who can stand by unmoved when a
self-contained man reveals the anguish of his soul in one passionate
outburst. Could the fury that quivered in his voice have wreaked itself