, Allen. I wuz out on Crazy Tom Mountain
at the time. Reckon ye know the place."

"Fairly well."

"Well, it wuz while the buffalo had been over to the Fork. Grazin'
wuzn't very good thet season an' the critters wuz rather ugly in
consequence."

"Yes, I've heard they get bad when their feed is cut short."

"As I wuz sayin', I wuz up alongside o' Crazy Tom Mountain, looking fer
b'ar, an' I had jes' struck a fine trail when I heered a curious sound
on the tudder side o' the hill. I couldn't make it out nohow at fust,
but byme-by I thought it must be buffalo, an' I wuz right."

"Did they come right down on you?"

"No, worse luck, they didn't. If they hed I might have scooted to one
side or tudder. But instead o' comin' straight over the
mountain--'tain's high, ye remember--they came around on both sides,
an' afore I knowed it, I wuz right in the middle o' 'em."

"What did you do?" asked Allen, as Watson paused reflectively.

"At fust I didn't know what ter do persackly. I shot one of 'em, but
bless ye, thet wuzn't nuthin', and I calkerlated as how I'd have ter
ride fer it. Then of a sudden my hoss got scared and shot me over his
head into a big thorn bush and made off like a streak o' greased
lightnin', leaving me alone."

"With the buffalo all around you?"

"Jes' so, more'n twenty o' 'em, an' more'n a hundred others comin' up
fast as they could leg it. I kin tell ye I wuz in a fix an' no error."

"It must have hurt you to land in the thorn bush?"

"Hurt? Wall say, it wuz like bein' dumped into a pit full o' daggers,
that wuz! Hain't fergot the awful stickin' pain yit an' never will! But
bein' chucked into thet thorn bush saved my life."

"Didn't the buffalo touch the bush?"

"Nary a one. They would come up close, on a dead run, an' then shy like
a skittish hoss afore a bit o' white paper. Time an' ag'in I thought
one would heave hisself atop o' me an' squash me, but the time didn't
come. Say, but it wuz a sight, that wuz!" went on Watson earnestly.
"Them buffalo was mad, clean stark mad, and trampled all over each
other. The stampede at thet p'int didn't last more 'n three minutes an'
arfter it wuz over thar wuz five buffalo dead less than four yards away
from me!"

"Tramped to death by the others?"

"Yes, smashed up too. Ye never saw sech a sight. Arfter thet ye can
calkerlate I keep clear o' all other stampedes," concluded the old
hunter.

Talking over one thing and another the party moved along unt