s which way to ride for the herd.
There was the trail to the watering-place. There were the salt-licks and
the wallows and the crushed grass where two young fellows had been
smashing each other's horns in a trial of strength. There were the bones
of the poor old deposed king, picked clear by the coyotes, or, perhaps,
the lonely outcast himself, standing at bay, feeble and frightened, a
picture of dumb woe! To such the hunter's shot was a mercy stroke. Or,
most interesting of all signs and surest proof that the herd was near--a
little bundle of fawn-coloured fur lying out flat as a door-mat under
hiding of sage-brush, or against a clay mound, precisely the colour of
its own hide.

Poke it! An ear blinks, or a big ox-like eye opens! It is a buffalo calf
left cached by the mother, who has gone to the watering-place or is
pasturing with the drove. Lift it up! It is inert as a sack of wool. Let
it go! It drops to earth flat and lifeless as a door-mat. The mother has
told it how to escape the coyotes and wolverines; and the little rascal
is "playing dead." But if you fondle it and warm it--the Indians say,
breathe into its face--it forgets all about the mother's warning and
follows like a pup.

At the first signs of the herd's proximity the squaws parted from the
cavalcade and all impedimenta remained behind. The best-equipped man was
the man with the best horse, a horse that picked out the largest buffalo
from one touch of the rider's hand or foot, that galloped swift as wind
in pursuit, that jerked to a stop directly opposite the brute's
shoulders and leaped from the sideward sweep of the charging horns. No
sound came from the hunters till all were within close range. Then the
captain gave the signal, dropped a flag, waved his hand, or fired a
shot, and the hunters charged.

Arrows whistled through the air, shots clattered with the fusillade of
artillery volleys. Bullets fell to earth with the dull ping of an aim
glanced aside by the adamant head bones or the heaving shoulder fur of
the buffalo. The Indians shouted their war-cry of "Ah--oh, ah--oh!" Here
and there French voices screamed "Voila! Les boeufs! Les boeufs!
Sacre! Tonnerre! Tir--tir--tir--donc! By Gar!" And Missouri traders
called out plain and less picturesque but more forcible English.

Sometimes the suddenness of the attack dazed the herd; but the second
volley with the smell of powder and smoke and men started the stampede.
Then followed such a wild rush