ut,
bristled angrily, and made a show of charging. I shot at her with
a large holster pistol, and hit her somewhere in the neck. Down she
tumbled into the ravine, whither her companions had descended before
her. I saw their dark backs appearing and disappearing as they galloped
along the bottom; then, one by one, they came scrambling out on the
other side and ran off as before, the wounded animal following with
unabated speed.

Turning back, I saw Raymond coming on his black mule to meet me; and as
we rode over the field together, we counted dozens of carcasses lying on
the plain, in the ravines and on the sandy bed of the stream. Far away
in the distance, horses and buffalo were still scouring along, with
little clouds of dust rising behind them; and over the sides of
the hills we could see long files of the frightened animals rapidly
ascending. The hunters began to return. The boys, who had held the
horses behind the hill, made their appearance, and the work of flaying
and cutting up began in earnest all over the field. I noticed my host
Kongra-Tonga beyond the stream, just alighting by the side of a cow
which he had killed. Riding up to him I found him in the act of drawing
out an arrow, which, with the exception of the notch at the end, had
entirely disappeared in the animal. I asked him to give it to me, and
I still retain it as a proof, though by no means the most striking one
that could be offered, of the force and dexterity with which the Indians
discharge their arrows.

The hides and meat were piled upon the horses, and the hunters began to
leave the ground. Raymond and I, too, getting tired of the scene, set
out for the village, riding straight across the intervening desert.
There was no path, and as far as I could see, no landmarks sufficient
to guide us; but Raymond seemed to have an instinctive perception of
the point on the horizon toward which we ought to direct our course.
Antelope were bounding on all sides, and as is always the case in the
presence of buffalo, they seemed to have lost their natural shyness and
timidity. Bands of them would run lightly up the rocky declivities,
and stand gazing down upon us from the summit. At length we could
distinguish the tall white rocks and the old pine trees that, as we well
remembered, were just above the site of the encampment. Still, we could
see nothing of the village itself until, ascending a grassy hill, we
found the circle of lodges, dingy with storms and