Captain Vogel and I were the last to come into camp. On comparing notes we found that our bag consisted in all of nine buffalo—not counting the two of mine that Vogel would be sure to find and skin the next day. Oliver had killed four, Tom Nickalls one, I four. Not a bad piece of work, as even the hunters were obliged to confess, and they are not given to paying compliments. Our guns were greatly praised. Prairie Bill, with picturesque and highly ornate additions, declared that they had only one fault, and that was that they did not belong to him. Andy, mourning over his mules, not yet found, stopped in the midst of a torrent of abuse addressed to young Mexico, to swear that “them guns shoots wicked.” “You may bet your pile on that,” said Captain Vogel. The men said, however, that our rifles were too light for their use in the autumn time, when the big slaughter takes place. At that time they needed weapons with plenty of weight of metal so that they should not heat readily. That great sportsman and rifleman, Lord Elcho (the late Lord Wemyss), once laughed at my Rigby as being too heavy. I wonder what he would have said to Captain Vogel’s three-barrelled cannon. After all, this buffalo hunting was tame sport; one day of it, just for the novelty of the thing, was all very well, but neither of us would have cared for a renewal of the experience. The vast dreariness of the prairie offered no charm of scenery, none of the poetry of deer-stalking celebrated by Scrope. The American bison, fierce as he looked, was not a savage, revengeful enemy like the Indian buffalo; even when wounded he rarely turned upon his man. Hunting the creatures on horseback, and pistolling the master bull, which was the sport of the United States officers garrisoning the outlying forts, must have been fine fun. But for that we had not the necessary mounts. Had I had another day I should have confined myself to going after antelope; that, at least, was an exciting sport, needing great wariness and patience. For the first time in my life I on this day saw a herd of wild horses—perhaps I ought to say “horses run wild,” for we are told that there is no such thing as an indigenous American horse, so these must have been runaways, even though their savage state might have been decades or even centuries old. They followed us cautiously at a respectful distance, attracted, probably, by the charms of the good little mare. Mean-looking animals they were, in the poorest of condition; their manes and tails floating wildly in the wind; one, at least, must have been a recent recruit escaped from some ranche, as the saddle galls on his back proved. Horses that have once been broken in and have gone back to savagery and liberty are, so the hunters told me, the shiest of all. Another sight new to me was that of the “sun-dogs”; luminous clouds with prismatic colours hanging round the sun like beautiful satellites, a sure sign of coming storms and foul weather.