The dense mass hastened before us towards the banks of the river bed, and rushed down into the swampy bottom with deafening roars and grunts. Buffalo after buffalo fell into the ravine till we pulled up on the bank above them and laughed at their confusion and the efforts with which they ascended the other bank all coated with mud. I fancied that at least one half must break their necks, but not one of them remained in the mud. They forced their way to the other bank atop of each other, and sprang, apparently at least, quite unhurt up it. I had dismounted and shot a fat cow, which had borne a calf this year and hence was very plump. The cows only drop one calf every two years, and for this reason it is the more inexplicable that the number of these animals is not more rapidly reduced by the great destruction that takes place among them. The cow followed the herd but a short distance, and then fell dead on the prairie. We were obliged to go a long way up the bank before we could find a low path by which to cross, but soon reached the cow, put up rags round it, but left the paunching to my people, as we did not care to dirty ourselves with the mud that covered it. We now rode the shortest way to the forest on the Leone, and again crossed the stream on which I had shot the bull about three miles below the spot where it lay. We passed through the thick bushes out into the prairie, but Trusty did not follow us. He trotted down the stream, stopped every now and then, looked up to me and gave his deep bark. I looked at him curiously, for I knew that he was on some track, when all at once he disappeared in the bushes and stopped. I gave Czar, whom the well-known voice had rendered impatient, his head, and soon reached the bushes among which Trusty was baying, with a revolver in my hand. I turned Czar into a gap between the bushes, when suddenly the shaggy head of a furious buffalo rose above the bank within a yard of me. My startled horse swerved, and cleared the bushes by a tremendous leap, while the monster dashed past me with a roar and galloped across the prairie. I soon got out of the bush, however, and went after it, while Tiger came to meet me. I was close behind the bull, when Tiger flew past it and gave it a bullet from his long rifle near the neck. The buffalo followed the piebald with terrible fury, dyeing the prairie with its blood, when I darted past it and gave it a bullet from my revolver behind the shoulder-blade, which lamed its left fore leg. Trusty now attacked it in the flank, and it stood at bay, holding its head close to the ground, with its nose between its fore feet, and holding one of its short sharp horns against the dog. The buffalo stood motionless with its tail erect, while Trusty sprang barking before it, waiting for the moment when it should raise its head. But its hour had arrived. I rode within twenty yards, and shot it through the heart: it fell lifeless.