While We Were Lying On The Grass
After Dinner, Smoking, Conversing, Or Laughing At Tete Rouge, One Of
Us Would Look Up And Observe, Far Out On The Plains Beyond The River,
Certain Black Objects Slowly Approaching.
He would inhale a parting
whiff from the pipe, then rising lazily, take his rifle, which leaned
against the
Cart, throw over his shoulder the strap of his pouch and
powder-horn, and with his moccasins in his hand walk quietly across
the sand toward the opposite side of the river. This was very easy;
for though the sands were about a quarter of a mile wide, the water
was nowhere more than two feet deep. The farther bank was about four
or five feet high, and quite perpendicular, being cut away by the
water in spring. Tall grass grew along its edge. Putting it aside
with his hand, and cautiously looking through it, the hunter can
discern the huge shaggy back of the buffalo slowly swaying to and
fro, as with his clumsy swinging gait he advances toward the water.
The buffalo have regular paths by which they come down to drink.
Seeing at a glance along which of these his intended victim is
moving, the hunter crouches under the bank within fifteen or twenty
yards, it may be, of the point where the path enters the river. Here
he sits down quietly on the sand. Listening intently, he hears the
heavy monotonous tread of the approaching bull. The moment after he
sees a motion among the long weeds and grass just at the spot where
the path is channeled through the bank.
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