As it was we were, in nautical phraseology, coming up with the chase hand over hand, and after floundering through a spongy bottom, in which were several wallows of some dozen feet in diameter made by the buffaloes, I found myself near enough to try the effect of lead, and dropping my lance to trail along the ground by a thong attached to my wrist, for I was not expert enough to handle both it and my rifle, as an Indian would have done without inconvenience, I brought the barrels to bear and gave the contents of both just as Nigger's nose was on a level with the haunch of one of the largest and blackest bulls that ever ranged over a western plain. With due regard for the preservation of himself, and possibly his rider, Nigger made an abrupt curve, and sheering off, almost at a right angle, avoided an ugly, vicious thrust, which the bull might have made much more effective than my brace of bullets, had not the sagacity of the pony taught him to avoid it. Upon reining in my gallant and discreet little steed, and turning his head again toward the buffalo, I saw that he was standing still, and giving as bold a front as was ever offered to an enemy. Coming to a corresponding attitude, I deliberately reloaded my rifle, and approached him with the greatest caution; for whether he intended to wait my second attack, or plunge forward and send me and Nigger skimming to some unknown corner of the earth, appeared a matter of doubt not quite made up. After a few brief moments for reconnoitring, I urged Nigger to advance to within less than thirty paces of where the bull stood glaring at us, with his curling mane and beard sweeping below his knees, and his distended jaws dropping foam, scarlet dyed with blood. Nothing, indeed, can be imagined more ferocious than the wounded animal looked, fixing the peculiar white balls and black iris of his eyes upon us, under his shaggy frontlet, with the expression of the devil in a mood far from funny. Thinking it expedient to bring the contest to a conclusion without further waste of time, I essayed a manoeuvre in order to obtain a sight at a more vulnerable part of my victim's carcass than that which, as I had been given to understand by Hawkeye, his head presented. But, as the baited grimalkin turns to the worrying cur, so did the bull turn exactly with my movements, ever presenting his head, and nothing but his head. This proving exceedingly wearisome, and quickly exhausting the slender stock of patience with which nature supplied me at my birth, I resolved to try what a shot would do in the centre of his forehead, and steadying Nigger for a moment, snapped my left barrel at him, when with the crack down he dropped, and spurring forward in the belief that I had given him his _coup-de-grace_, I was not a little surprised to see him again stagger to his feet, ready to receive me on his two short black horns, curved in the best possible shape for the ripping business.