"These manoeuvres on his part suggested to me an experiment, and I wondered that I had not thought of it before. I was not long in resolving to carry it out. I was armed with a stout hunting-knife, a bowie; it was pointed as sharp as a needle; and could I only have ventured near enough to the bull, I would soon have settled the dispute with him. The idea now occurred to me of converting my bowie into a lance by splicing it upon the barrel of my gun. With this I had hopes of being able to reach my powerful assailant without coming within range either of his hoofs or horns. "The lance was soon made, a pair of buckskin gaiters which I wore furnished me with thongs. My gun happened to be a long rifle; and the knife, spliced firmly to the muzzle, rendered it a formidable weapon, so that in a few minutes I stood in a better attitude than I had assumed for hours before. "The affair soon came to an issue. As I had anticipated, by showing myself a little to one side of the tree, the bull sprang forward, and I was enabled, by a dexterous thrust, to plant the knife between his ribs. It entered his heart, and the next moment I saw him rolling over, and kicking the crimsoned snow around him in the struggles of death. "I had scarcely completed my victory, when a loud whoop sounded in my ears, and looking up, I saw my friend making towards me across the open ground. He had completed his chase, having killed all three, cut them up, and hung their meat upon the trees, to be sent for on our return to the house. "By his aid the bull was disposed of in a similar manner; and being now satisfied with our day's sport--though my friend very much regretted the loss of his fine dog--we commenced shuffling homeward." CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. THE PRAIRIE-WOLF AND WOLF-KILLER. After crossing the Marais de Cygnes River the country became much more open. There was a mixture of timber and prairie-land--the latter, however, constantly gaining the ascendancy as we advanced farther west. The openings became larger, until they assumed the appearance of vast meadows, inclosed by groves, that at a distance resembled great hedges. Now and then there were copses that stood apart from the larger tracts of forests, looking like islands upon the surface of a green sea, and by the name of "islands" these detached groves are known among the hunters and other denizens of prairie-land. Sometimes the surface was undulating or, as it is there termed, "rolling," and our road was varied, ascending or descending, as we crossed the gentle declivities. The timber through which we had up to this time been passing consisted of ash, burr oak, black walnut, chestnut oak, buck eye, the American elm, hickory, hackberry, sumach, and, in low moist places, the sycamore, and long-leaved willow. These trees, with many others, form the principal growth of the large forests, upon the banks of the Mississippi, both cast and west.