reminder to the persistent wolves.

"Six! On! On! Kentuck! On!" Weakening, but unconscious of it, with
bloody hands and feet, without lasso, and with only one charge in his
revolver, hatless, coatless, vestless, bootless, the wild hunter urged
on the noble horse. The herd had gained miles in the interval of the
fight. Game to the backbone, Kentuck lengthened out to overhaul it, and
slowly the rolling gap lessened and lessened. A long hour thumped away,
with the rumble growing nearer.

Once again the lagging calves dotted the grassy plain before the
hunter. He dashed beside a burly calf, grasped its tail, stopped his
horse, and jumped. The calf went down with him, and did not come up.
The knotted, blood-stained hands, like claws of steel, bound the hind
legs close and fast with a leathern belt, and left between them a torn
and bloody sock.

"Seven! On! Old Faithfull! We MUST have another! the last! This is your
day."

The blood that flecked the hunter was not all his own.

The sun slanted westwardly toward the purpling horizon; the grassy
plain gleamed like a ruffled sea of glass; the gray wolves loped on.

When next the hunter came within sight of the herd, over a wavy ridge,
changes in its shape and movement met his gaze. The calves were almost
done; they could run no more; their mothers faced the south, and
trotted slowly to and fro; the bulls were grunting, herding, piling
close. It looked as if the herd meant to stand and fight.

This mattered little to the hunter who had captured seven calves since
dawn. The first limping calf he reached tried to elude the grasping
hand and failed. Kentuck had been trained to wheel to the right or
left, in whichever way his rider leaned; and as Jones bent over and
caught an upraised tail, the horse turned to strike the calf with both
front hoofs. The calf rolled; the horse plunged down; the rider sped
beyond to the dust. Though the calf was tired, he still could bellow,
and he filled the air with robust bawls.

Jones all at once saw twenty or more buffalo dash in at him with fast,
twinkling, short legs. With the thought of it, he was in the air to the
saddle. As the black, round mounds charged from every direction,
Kentuck let out with all there was left in him. He leaped and whirled,
pitched and swerved, in a roaring, clashing, dusty melee. Beating hoofs
threw the turf, flying tails whipped the air, and everywhere were
dusky, sharp-pointed heads, tossing low. Kentuck squ