Without evincing any emotions of deep chagrin, Adonis was left behind to guard such goods, chattels, and provisions as would have proved useless to have been carried forward, and as it was expected that we should be enabled to return to the encampment before night-fall, he was directed to hold all things in readiness, and more especially to withstand temptation in keeping his mouth from the bung of my nearly exhausted whisky-keg. In an extended line, or by the familiar description of Indian file, we began this march as usual just at ruddy daybreak, and were not far advanced on the great prairie stretching before us like a vast and limitless ocean, when Blackwolf, who headed the force, reined in his dark iron-gray steed with a sudden jerk which sent him nearly upon his haunches. In an instant all was commotion. Arrows were drawn from their quivers, bow-strings tried and thrummed, lances poised, and every eye directed to the spot on which the chief fixed his earnest and flashing gaze. Not two miles distant, and grazing in fancied security on a piece of table land as level as a bowling-green, a large herd of buffalo was descried, looking at the distance like so many black specks on the waste. Some I could perceive were lying down, and the scene altogether may be compared, without violence to the imagination, to what the tourist may witness by the aid of railways, within a few hours of the metropolis, in a canter across Dartmoor or Exmoor, and where no dread exists of Pawnees and Camanches. It was decided that we should head the herd, and endeavor to drive them back toward the encampment, in order to save as little time and trouble as possible in getting the meat and skins to that quarter. In prosecuting this scheme we had to make a wide circle from the direct course, and, indeed, it would have been impossible to approach them in any other way, as we were down the wind, and their powers of scent, like those given to the denizens of the wild in general, are of the most acute order. "You know, major," observed Hawkeye, as he turned our horses considerably to the left, for for the purpose of covering our circumventing manoeuvre under the screen of two lines of bluffs running parallel with each other, "You know, major," repeated he, with a sly twinkle of satire in his snake-like eyes, "for all de Britishers dat come here say _you know_ to every thing, dat buff_alo_ smell Indian mile off. No see far; but smell--Hah! no saying how far buff_alo_ smell."