We rode slowly until we got within three or four hundred yards of the edge of the vast herd. Then they began to run and we followed, gaining on them all the time. Pressing forward, at the full speed of my horse, I discovered that the whole band just in front of me were old bulls. I was so anxious to kill a buffalo that I began shooting at a very large one, occasionally knocking tufts of hair off his coat, but apparently having little other effect. However, after a lively run of perhaps a mile or two he slackened his pace, and at last stopped still and, turning about, faced me. I fired the one or two remaining charges of my revolvers, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, and thought he gave evidence of being mortally wounded. After gazing steadily at me for a few minutes he turned around and walked off. I followed, but presently he resumed a gallop in the direction the main herd had gone, soon disappearing from view over a ridge. So I had made a failure, and felt a good deal put out, as well as worn out by the fatigue of fast riding. Through a vista between the clouds of dust raised by the buffalo, I got a glimpse of Reece. His horse proved to be very much afraid of the buffalo and could not be urged close enough to afford shooting, with any degree of certainty, with a pistol. Reece held his magnificent horse with a rein of the bridle in either hand, his head fronting towards the buffalo, but the frightened animal would turn to one side, despite the best efforts of his master, fairly flying around in front of the herd. That was Reece’s first and last attempt to kill a buffalo on horseback. I rode back towards the train, soon meeting Captain Chiles, who greeted me with derisive laughter, but considerately expressed the hope that I would have better success upon a second attempt. As we were all very anxious to get some fresh meat, he suggested that I should lend him my horse; that he would easily kill one with a double-barrel shotgun, which he was carrying in front on his saddle. I readily agreed to this, and mounting on my horse, he put off and promptly slew a fat, well-grown calf that proved good eating for us who had lived on bacon for many days. That afternoon I turned my buffalo horse loose, permitting him to follow, or be driven along with the cavayard, in order that he might recuperate from the exhausting races of the forenoon. The following morning he was as good as ever, and I resolved to try another chase. Having received some pertinent instructions from Captain Chiles, as to the modus operandi of killing buffalo on horseback at full speed, I mounted and sallied forth with him, the weather being ideal and the game abundant. At the left of the road, in sight, thousands of buffalo were grazing in a vast plain, lower than the ridge down which we were riding. Opened up in our view was a scope of country to the southeast of us, a distance of ten miles. This plain was covered with them, all heading towards the northwest.