it's _something_,
you may depend upon it, else I would not have disturbed you."

Dick lifted his rifle from the ground, and laid it in the hollow of
his left arm.

"There must be something in the wind," remarked Dick.

As wind is known to be composed of two distinct gases, Crusoe felt
perfectly safe in replying "Yes" with his tail. Immediately after he
added, "Hallo! did you hear that?" with his ears.

Dick did hear it, and sprang hastily to his feet, as a sound like, yet
unlike, distant thunder came faintly down upon the breeze. In a few
seconds the sound increased to a roar in which was mingled the wild
cries of men. Neither Dick nor Crusoe moved, for the sounds came from
behind the heights in front of them, and they felt that the only way
to solve the question, "What can the sounds be?" was to wait till the
sounds should solve it themselves.

Suddenly the muffled sounds gave place to the distinct bellowing of
cattle, the clatter of innumerable hoofs, and the yells of savage men,
while at the same moment the edges of the opposite cliffs became alive
with Indians and buffaloes rushing about in frantic haste--the former
almost mad with savage excitement, the latter with blind rage and
terror.

On reaching the edge of the dizzy precipice, the buffaloes turned
abruptly and tossed their ponderous heads as they coursed along the
edge. Yet a few of them, unable to check their headlong course, fell
over, and were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Such falls, Dick
observed, were hailed with shouts of delight by the Indians, whose
sole object evidently was to enjoy the sport of driving the terrified
animals over the precipice. The wily savages had chosen their ground
well for this purpose.

The cliff immediately opposite to Dick Varley was a huge projection
from the precipice that hemmed in the gorge, a species of cape or
promontory several hundred yards wide at the base, and narrowing
abruptly to a point. The sides of this wedge-shaped projection were
quite perpendicular--indeed, in some places the top overhung the
base--and they were at least three hundred feet high. Broken and
jagged rocks, of that peculiarly chaotic character which probably
suggested the name to this part of the great American chain, projected
from and were scattered all round the cliffs. Over these the Indians,
whose numbers increased every moment, strove to drive the luckless
herd of buffaloes that had chanced to fall in their way. The task wa