, but they've been killed down a
deal. You see the Injun lives on 'em a'most. He cuts up and dries the
beef, and he makes himself buffler robes of the skins, and very nice
warm things they are in cold parts up in the mountains. I don't know
what the Injun would do if it wasn't for the buffler. He'd starve. Not
as that would be so very much consequence, as far as some tribes goes--
Comanches and Apaches, and them sort as lives by killing and murdering
every one they sees. Halloa! what's that mean?"

He pulled up, and shaded his eyes with his hand, to gaze at where one of
the Indians was evidently making some sign with his spear as he sat in a
peculiar way, right on their extreme left, upon an eminence in the
plain.

Bart looked eagerly on, so as to try and learn what this signal meant.

"Oh, I know," said Joses directly, as he saw the Beaver make his horse
circle round. "He can see a herd far out on the plain, and the Beaver
has just signalled him back; so ride on, my lad, and we may perhaps come
across a big run of the rough ones before the day is out."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

BART'S FIRST BISON.

Joses was wrong, for no sign was seen of buffalo that day, and so the
next morning, after a very primitive kind of camp out in the wilderness,
the Beaver took them in quite a different direction, parallel to the
camp, so as to be within range, for distance had to be remembered in
providing meat for so large a company.

It was what Joses called ticklish work.

"You must keep your eyes well skinned, Master Bart," he said, with a
grim smile, as they left the plain for an undulating country, full of
depressions, most of which contained water, and whose gentle hills were
covered with succulent buffalo-grass. "If you don't, my lad, you may
find yourself dropping down on to a herd of Apaches instead of
buffaloes; and I can tell you, young fellow, that a buck Injun's a deal
worse thing to deal with than a bull buffler. You must keep a sharp
look-out."

"I'll do the best I can, Joses, you may be sure; but suppose I should
come upon an Indian party--what am I to do?"

"Do, my lad? Why, make tracks as sharp as ever you can to your
friends--that is, if you are alone."

"But if I can't get away, and they shoot at me?"

"Well, what do you mean?" said Joses, dryly.

"I mean what am I to do if I am in close quarters, and feel that they
will kill me?"

"Oh," said Joses, grimly, "I should pull up short, and go up