arty meal upon the cold flesh of
the bear, we resumed our journey to warm ourselves by exercise and dry
our clothes, for we were wet to the skin, and benumbed with cold.

The reader may be surprised at these wild animals being in the state of
utter exhaustion which I have described; but he must be reminded that,
in all probability, this prairie fire had driven them before it for
hundreds of miles, and that at a speed unusual to them, and which
nothing but a panic could have produced. I think it very probable that
the fire ran over an extent of five hundred miles; and my reason for so
estimating it is, the exhausted state of the carnivorous animals.

A panther can pass over two hundred miles or more at full speed without
great exhaustion; so would a jaguar, or, indeed an elk.

I do not mean to say that all the animals, as the buffaloes, mustangs,
deer, &c., had run this distance; of course, as the fire rolled on, the
animals were gradually collected, till they had formed the astounding
mass which I have described, and thousands had probably already
perished, long before the fire had reached the prairie where we were
encamped; still I have at other times witnessed the extraordinary
exertions which animals are capable of when under the influence of fear.
At one estampede, I knew some oxen, with their yokes on their necks, to
accomplish sixty miles in four hours.

On another occasion, on the eastern shores of the Vermilion Sea, I
witnessed an estampede, and, returning twelve days afterwards, I found
the animals still lying in every direction on the prairie, although much
recovered from their fatigue. On this last occasion, the prairie had
been burnt for three hundred miles, from east to west, and there is no
doubt but that the animals had estampedoed the whole distance at the
utmost of their speed.

Our horses having quite recovered from their past fatigue, we started at
a brisk canter, under the beams of a genial sun, and soon felt the warm
blood stirring in our veins. We had proceeded about six or seven miles,
skirting the edge of the mass of buffaloes reclining on the prairie,
when we witnessed a scene which filled us with pity. Fourteen hungry
wolves, reeling and staggering with weakness, were attacking a splendid
black stallion, which was so exhausted, that he could not get up upon
his legs. His neck and sides were already covered with wounds, and his
agony was terrible. Now, the horse is too noble an animal not to