To my utter amazement it
fell with a dull splash, breaking at once through the thin crust, and
spattering round the hole a yellowish creamy fluid, into which it
sank and disappeared. A stick, five or six feet long lay on the
ground, and with this we sounded the insidious abyss close to its
edge. It was just possible to touch the bottom. Places like this
are numerous among the Rocky Mountains. The buffalo, in his blind
and heedless walk, often plunges into them unawares. Down he sinks;
one snort of terror, one convulsive struggle, and the slime calmly
flows above his shaggy head, the languid undulations of its sleek and
placid surface alone betraying how the powerful monster writhes in
his death-throes below.
We found after some trouble a point where we could pass the abyss,
and now the valley began to open upon the plains which spread to the
horizon before us. On one of their distant swells we discerned three
or four black specks, which Reynal pronounced to be buffalo.
"Come," said he, "we must get one of them. My squaw wants more
sinews to finish her lodge with, and I want some glue myself."
He immediately put the yellow horse at such a gallop as he was
capable of executing, while I set spurs to the mule, who soon far
outran her plebeian rival.
