wn, in
slow, deceptive descent. A solitary and remote waste reached out into
gray infinitude. A pale lake, gray as the rest of that gray expanse,
glimmered in the distance.

"Mirage!" he muttered, focusing his glass, which only magnified all
under the dead gray, steely sky. "Water must be somewhere; but can that
be it? It's too pale and elusive to be real. No life--a blasted, staked
plain! Hello!"

A thin, black, wavering line of wild fowl, moving in beautiful, rapid
flight, crossed the line of his vision. "Geese flying north, and low.
There's water here," he said. He followed the flock with his glass, saw
them circle over the lake, and vanish in the gray sheen.

"It's water." He hurried back to camp. His haggard and worn companions
scorned his discovery. Adams siding with Rude, who knew the plains,
said: "Mirage! the lure of the desert!" Yet dominated by a force too
powerful for them to resist, they followed the buffalo-hunter. All day
the gleaming lake beckoned them onward, and seemed to recede. All day
the drab clouds scudded before the cold north wind. In the gray
twilight, the lake suddenly lay before them, as if it had opened at
their feet. The men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed
the damp air.

The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, and splash of water,
the whirl of ducks did not blur out of Jones's keen ear a sound that
made him jump. It was the thump of hoofs, in a familiar beat, beat,
beat. He saw a shadow moving up a ridge. Soon, outlined black against
the yet light sky, a lone buffalo cow stood like a statue. A moment she
held toward the lake, studying the danger, then went out of sight over
the ridge.

Jones spurred his horse up the ascent, which was rather long and steep,
but he mounted the summit in time to see the cow join eight huge,
shaggy buffalo. The hunter reined in his horse, and standing high in
his stirrups, held his hat at arms' length over his head. So he
thrilled to a moment he had sought for two years. The last herd of
American bison was near at hand. The cow would not venture far from the
main herd; the eight stragglers were the old broken-down bulls that had
been expelled, at this season, from the herd by younger and more
vigorous bulls. The old monarchs saw the hunter at the same time his
eyes were gladdened by sight of them, and lumbered away after the cow,
to disappear in the gathering darkness. Frightened buffalo always make
straight for their fellow