As we were watching them the biggest bull, a fine old fellow with a huge black mane and a long goat’s beard, detached himself from a bunch of cows and stood stretching himself and cocking his tail. There he stood, broadside on to me, a glorious chance. “Take the old chap as is a-cockin’ his tail,” Andy whispered in my ear, but there was no need of the hint; before the words were well out of his mouth the rifle had spoken and the dull thud that followed told that the bullet had struck home. “He has it, by the Lord!” shouted Andy. No apathy about him now! The old bull bowed to the shot, took a pace or two to the front, then turned to the right, tottered for a couple of seconds, sank down, and rolled over stone dead, shot through the heart. The rest of the herd, when they saw their chief stricken, gathered round him for a few moments, as is their wont at the sight of blood, and when the prairie rang with the noise of his fall, an almost metallic sound, trotted slowly off, Andy sending a parting shot after them in vain. As for me, I was too much excited over my first buffalo to think of firing a second shot. I ran up to get a close look at him. We measured the distance; one hundred and seventy yards. Andy, highly delighted at my success, made short work of cutting off the head, which now hangs in my hall at Batsford. We were now pretty hungry and went back to breakfast in great glee. How good the muddy coffee and the tough buffalo steak tasted! When we reached the camp we found that the others had naturally breakfasted and started. Oliver with Prairie Bill as his aide-de-camp, Tom Nickalls under the guidance of young Mexico. It was just as well for the latter that he was out of the way when Andy turned up, or there would have been an explosion in the matter of those strayed mules. Captain Vogel had stayed behind for me.