By the side of the first of the hills seen the day before, the noonday halt was made. The Pawnees still continued very friendly, the more so on discovering that nothing but the desire to do battle with bisons and grisly bears had brought the pale-faces so far. "To-morrow we will show you many bisons," they said; and they certainly kept their promise. All that afternoon the sportsmen could trace the steady passage north-westwards of herd after herd of the animals; at that distance merely a brown, moving blur; and Coke wondered how the Indians ever proposed to come up with them. "They will go no farther than the river," said the Pawnees, when questioned. On the afternoon of the next day, as the little procession came near to another of the mound-like hills, the guides called a halt. "We are too few to attack a herd," they said. "We must watch for the stragglers which may be grazing on the slopes. Go very quietly and do not raise your voices. Follow us and leave the waggons here." They moved on their horses again at a quick walk, and the white men did the same, till they had gone nearly half round the base of the hill, when the Pawnees pulled up with a jerk, and one of them spoke hurriedly to George Dumont, who rode immediately behind the guides. On the hillside about twenty bisons were grazing; and it seemed the easiest thing in the world to cut them off from the rest of the herd, which, to the number of three or four hundred, were moving slowly towards the river, now plainly to be seen flashing in the far distance. "Look here," said George, turning to the Englishmen, and speaking with evident embarrassment. "They mean to make us prove our pretensions to being mighty hunters. Two of them are going round the farther side to keep the bulls from wandering, and this chap is going to captain us. We've got to guard the valley and this side of the hill; but as you fellows are new to it--if you'd rather not be in it----" "Oh, bosh!" said Coke; "we're going to stand by you and get our share of the fun." "Oh--of course; if you feel sure of yourselves. Well; keep an eye open for the game beyond. They have a nasty trick of coming to each other's assistance." He made a sign to the two foremost Indians, who galloped away without a word, and were soon invisible behind the loitering bisons. Then the Englishmen saw what sort of sport they were letting themselves in for. They were to stop the probable downward and sideward rush of twenty bulls, killing as many of them as they could, and be prepared at the same time for an attack by the remaining hundreds that, at the first gunshot, might turn on them in a body. Daily, for the past fortnight, both of them had zealously practised shooting with a rifle while at the gallop; but what sort of experience was that to bring to a task which the Canadians, used from boyhood to bison-hunting, admitted was a dangerous one?