I covered
up the eggs and an hour later found she had returned and resumed
her post.
That night, as I sat by the fire musing, I went over my life when
I was a boy in Manitoba, just too late to see the Buffalo, recalling
how I used to lie in some old Buffalo wallow and peer out over the
prairie through the fringe of spring anemones and long to see the
big brown forms on the plains. Once in those days I got a sensation,
for I did see them. They turned out to be a herd of common cattle,
but still I got the thrill.
Now I was on a real Buffalo hunt, some twenty-five years too late.
Will it come? Am I really to see the Wild Buffalo on its native
plains? It is too good to be true; too much like tipping back the
sands of time.
CHAPTER VII
THE BUFFALO HUNT
We left camp on Salt River at 7.45 in the morning and travelled
till 11 o'clock, covering six miles. It was all through the same
level country, in which willow swamps alternated with poplar and
spruce ridges. At 11 it began to rain, so we camped on a slope under
some fine, big white spruces till it cleared, and then continued
westward.
