suggested that
I should remain at the ranch until they returned; but that I refused
to do--to give up the hunt was not to be thought of, particularly as
a ranchman had just told us that a small herd of buffalo had been seen
that very morning only two miles farther on. So, when the horses were a
little rested, we started, and, after riding a mile or more, we came to
a small ravine, where we found one poor buffalo, too old and emaciated
to keep up with his companions, and who, therefore, had been abandoned
by them, to die alone. He had eaten the grass as far as he could reach,
and had turned around and around until the ground looked as though it
had been spaded.

He got up on his old legs as we approached him, and tried to show fight
by dropping his head and throwing his horns to the front, but a child
could have pushed him over. One of the officers tried to persuade me to
shoot him, saying it would be a humane act, and at the same time give
me the prestige of having killed a buffalo! But the very thought of
pointing a pistol at anything so weak and utterly helpless was revolting
in the extreme. He was such an object of pity, too, left there all alone
to die of starvation, when perhaps at one time he may have been leader
of his herd. He was very tall, had a fine head, with an uncommonly long
beard, and showed every indication of having been a grand specimen of
his kind.

We left him undisturbed, but only a few minutes later we heard the sharp
report of a rifle, and at once suspected, what we learned to be a
fact the next day, that one of the men with the wagons had killed him.
Possibly this was the most merciful thing to do, but to me that shot
meant murder. The pitiful bleary eyes of the helpless old beast have
haunted me ever since we saw him.

We must have gone at least two miles farther before we saw the herd we
were looking for, making fifteen or sixteen miles altogether that we had
ridden. The buffalo were grazing quietly along a meadow in between low,
rolling hills. We immediately fell back a short distance and waited for
the wagons, and when they came up there was great activity, I assure
you. The officers' saddles were transferred to their hunters, and the
men who were to join in the chase got their horses and rifles ready.
Lieutenant Baldwin gave his instructions to everybody, and all started
off, each one going in a different direction so as to form a cordon,
Faye said, around the whole herd. Faye would not