Just as I reached the entrance of the gorge I saw a herd of seven buffalo bulls grazing. In a second I leaped off Czar and ran from stone to stone, till I got within ten yards of the shaggy monsters, from which I was only separated by a large rock. I crept under this on the ground, till I had the buffaloes before me; the nearest one stood motionless, with its broad, hairy forehead turned toward me, and I aimed at the centre of it, although I had often tried in vain to kill a buffalo by a shot through the head. This time, however, the bullet did its work, and the other bulls fled round the rock toward the valley. As the fat buffalo would supply me with food for several days, I fetched my horse, took the axe hanging from the saddle, and set to work cutting out the sirloin, while Czar grazed by my side and now and then licked up the blood. It is very difficult for a novice to cut up a buffalo, for the hide is remarkably hard and elastic, and sits very close to the flesh, while any attempt to turn the carcase about is hopeless. We may fairly say that a novice in these countries, if what the practitioners call a "greenhorn," would starve with a dead buffalo, if he had not some one to show him how to cut pieces off it. I thrust my sharp bowie knife between the ribs close behind the shoulder blade, ran it up along the spine and down again to the chest, then in the same way separated the two last ribs from the spine, and made a cut under the belly to the end of the first cut. I then hacked the ribs with the axe, lifted the entire side up, which broke the hacked ribs, and thus opened the interior of the animal, like lifting a trap door. The entrails were removed without much difficulty, and the two enormous loins under the spine cut out. I removed a piece of the hide from the hump, in order to secure a part of the streaky meat; cut out the tongue between the jaws, as I could not think of opening the mouth, took two marrow bones, and left the remaining 1400 lbs. of meat for the wolves and buzzards. All these dainties were hung about my saddle, for the hotter the sun shines on them the less does the meat putrefy. With a parting glance at the ravine, I again struck the Indian trail, which I followed northwards up the river.