As soon as possible after checking our horses, we rode back toward the wagon and the game, seeing in the former, the grinning faces of our men. The buffalo was still on his feet, but while we looked he slowly sunk to his knees, like an ox lying down to rest, and then quietly reposed on his belly, in the same attitude one sees domestic cattle assume when wishing a quiet chew of the cud. Had it not been for his bloody nose and wild eyes, he would have looked as peaceful as any bovine that ever breathed. [Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION_ GOING AFTER AMMUNITION.] Wishing to put the poor brute out of misery, we approached closer, and several of us dismounted, when a general fire was opened. Like a cat, the old fellow was on his feet again almost instantly. By a singular coincidence, our entire party just then discovered that we were out of ammunition, and in a body started for the wagon, to get some. Muggs afterward assured us that, at the time, he had just got his hand in, "so that every shot told, you know," and I have the authority of all for the deliberate statement that the bull would have been riddled before moving a foot had not the cartridges suddenly given out. The effort of getting up had sent the mass of blood collected from inward bleeding surging out of the buffalo's nose, and, as we looked back, he was tottering feebly, and an instant afterward fell to the ground. There was no doubt now of his death, and we swarmed upon and around him. He was an immense old fellow, and his hide fairly covered with the scars of past battles. Inasmuch as this was our first trophy, it was determined to take his skin, and we forthwith seated the Professor on his great shaggy neck, with the horns forming arms for an impromptu hunter's throne. From thence he wrote upon leaves from his note-book a letter to his class at the East, which he permitted me to copy. I introduce it here, as showing that the blood of even a savan pulsates warmly amid such circumstances as now surrounded us. "ON A BUFFALO, IN THE } YEAR OF MY HAPPINESS, ONE.}