This time the bull was started in earnest and went for all his speed, but the ground was good, and as my little Bob very soon overhauled him, I saw he was fat and worth coming a great way for. I was now some distance in advance of my companions, as Bob was the speediest horse in camp. As I came up I shot the bull, but struck him too far behind, so that my ball only broke his thigh. He went squat at first, but flung himself around in a flash. I went flying past him with the impetus of my horse's speed, leaving the big fellow facing my companions, and as I pulled up I turned and saw young Paul being thrown straight at the bull's head. His horse had come up as the bull faced around, and was so startled by the brute's angry roar that he stopped quick, and, the saddle-girth snapping, the rider was thrown straight ahead. There he lay with the bull standing over him on three legs, trying to get his horns under his body. For a moment I was horrified, for I knew that all the blame would rest upon me if any hurt should come to our party. I shouted, "Lie still--keep flat!" and the boy heard me; and though the bull was nosing him, he failed to put his horns under the prostrate form. In the meantime Firing Stony was coming up as fast as his horse could run. I saw him lean over his pony and shove out his old flint-lock, and thought it looked as if he might shoot the lad, for the bull's head was right there also. But with unerring aim he shot the bull through the brain, and as Paul rolled away the animal dropped dead. We were thankful for this escape, and in a short time were on our way to camp with our horses heavily loaded with prime meat. Contrary to the old man's premonitions, too, we found all well when we reached there. In a few days we were in the woods and luxuriating again on wild rhubarb and poplar sap, but finding less enjoyment from the attentions of innumerable mosquitoes and "bulldogs," as this was one of the rainy seasons and insect life abounded. Out on the plains the buffalo were sufficient at that time to sanitate the land. They drank up the surface-water and ate the grass, and there was no necessity for the smaller insect life; but here in the woods, with surface-water and rank growth in rich abundance, Nature's force of sanitation was a tremendously big one, and they bled us on every hand. Our forty-lodge camp was but a speck on their big field of enterprise.