Having had experience in killing buffalo on horseback the previous year, on the Santa Fé Trail, I suggested the propriety of giving the Indian a pair of Colt’s navy revolvers, which I had used effectively, but he declined them, signifying by signs that his bow and arrow would answer the purpose better than the pistols, and we soon discovered that he was a skillful buffalo hunter. The moment the horse was on the river bank he mounted him, bareback, without any trappings whatever save a short piece of rope tied around the horse’s neck. We stood on the hurricane deck looking on, and it immediately became apparent to us that the Indian well understood the business at hand, needing no instructions whatever from us. The horse at once showed speed and activity, the Indian, expertness in riding him, swaying and guiding him without even using the rope, galloping off, not towards the buffalo, but down the river bank, to a point where he had the wind of the game, then turning towards them, he got right up on them almost before they started. In a moment he was abreast of one of them and sent an arrow into its side half its length. Then the horse, it seemed, of his own will fell back to the rear, then sprang forward on the opposite side when a second arrow was shot into the buffalo deep enough to produce inward bleeding. The animal being mortally wounded ran only a half-mile when tumbled down to die. We had an unobstructed view of the whole proceeding from the hurricane deck of the boat. A striking performance, demonstrating the prowess of the Indian. The buffalo was butchered and brought on board, furnishing fresh meat for several days. Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced. Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations. Transcriber added the Table of Contents and the List of Illustrations. Page numbers in the List of Illustrations match the positions in this eBook, not the ones in the original book.