"'Well, Johnson,' he said to me, 'I believe so too, and we're going to try it.' "He took about twenty-five soldiers, and three or four of the officers went along, and we rode off up the creek, and after a while passed the herd and went down into the valley above it. There we scattered out all the way across the bottom like skirmishers, and commenced to walk slowly toward the buffalo. When they first saw us they stood and looked for quite a long time, and I thought it was mighty uncertain whether they would drive or whether they would run off over the bluffs, but after a little those that were nearest to us turned around and began to feed down the valley, working back the way they had come, and before night we had the bunch back on its old feeding ground just above the post, and when it got there we rode out of the valley and round over the hills to camp. "That bunch of buffalo stayed there for two months longer, and for all I know they would have been there yet, if it hadn't been that, along in April, the Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer, came into the post for supplies, and some of his command ran into those buffalo and chased them to kill meat for the command, and they scattered out and never came back again. "That bunch of buffalo stayed there in that one place for about six months, not scared, although animals enough were killed out of it to supply a hundred and fifty officers and men with fresh meat during all that time. I reckon there was an animal killed every day or two; only they were killed in a sensible way and the herd was never frightened." "Well, well," said Joe; "that seems to me one of the strangest things I ever heard of; and it just shows how near buffalo are to being cattle. You can imagine a thing of that kind happening to a bunch of cows, but it's new to me that it could happen to buffalo." "It seems to me," replied Hugh, "that it shows that wild animals don't spend all their time wandering over the country, as most people think they do, but each set of animals has some little range of country that's like home to them." "Yes," said Jack, "I guess that's the fact; and yet I believe most people don't understand it at all. I've heard my uncle say the same thing about wild animals, and about some kinds of birds. I mean birds like partridges and quail, that don't go south in winter, the way most birds do." "Well," exclaimed Hugh, "the fact is that most people don't know anything at all about how wild animals live, and of course they can't have right ideas about 'em. But here I've taken a whole lot of sleeping time talking to you boys about animals! We'd better quit now and turn in." CHAPTER IX VICENTE, COW HAND