After hours of searching, we sighted a small drove of buffalo. Immediately we circled about to get down the wind from them, and, by creeping on all fours nearly a mile through the snow, stalked within fair range of the nearest. By this time, however, we were both so faint and quivering from starvation and over-exertion that neither of us could hold his gun steady. Again and again we fired and reloaded, the stupid beasts standing all unconcerned at the report of our guns, though we repeatedly hit the nearer members of their band. With muskets we could surely have soon brought down one or more, if only from their loss of blood. But the tiny wound made by a rifle ball is of little effect unless a vital part is pierced. In the end we must have succeeded by a chance shot. But while we were yet blazing away as fast as we could load and fire, one of the herd chanced to drift around to where a flaw in the wind bore our scent to his sensitive nostrils. In an instant he had alarmed the herd, and all raced off, snorting with fear, the wounded running no less swiftly than their fellows. To follow such a stampede was useless. Once started, the animals would run for hours. We staggered to our feet and gazed after the fleeing herd in utter despair. "It is the end!" I groaned--"the end! We have lost our last chance!" "We are outspent!" murmured my companion. "We can do no more! My poor lads! faithful ever to their rash leader! To think that I have led them into this death-trap!" "They are men!" I cried in bitter anger. "What is death to men?--even this hideous agony of hunger? We can bear that. But to die now--my God!--that I should die before seeing her!--my Alisanda!" "No! not now!" He turned upon me with a flicker of feverish resolve in his hollow, bloodshot eyes. "Not now, not here! We are not cowards to give up the struggle while we can yet drag ourselves along." "As well here as a few paces farther on," I muttered. He dragged at my arm to rouse me from the black stupor of mind and body into which I was fast sinking. "John! think of her!" he cried. "You'll not give up! Keep fighting, for her sake, keep fighting, lad!" "For her sake," I whispered. I caught at his clutching hand and sought to rally from that benumbing stupor. "For her sake!" "And I--for the sake of those--who await the return of husband and father!" he panted. "Come! We'll fight--to the last!"