"Hallo, boy, ye've bin i' the wars!" exclaimed Joe, raising himself
from his task as Dick and Crusoe returned.

"You look more like it than I do," retorted Dick, laughing.

This was true, for cutting up a buffalo carcass with no other
instrument than a large knife is no easy matter. Yet western hunters
and Indians can do it without cleaver or saw, in a way that would
surprise a civilized butcher not a little. Joe was covered with blood
up to the elbows. His hair, happening to have a knack of getting into
his eyes, had been so often brushed off with bloody hands, that his
whole visage was speckled with gore, and his dress was by no means
immaculate.

While Dick related his adventure, or _mis_-adventure, with the bull,
Joe and Henri completed the cutting out of the most delicate portions
of the buffalo--namely, the hump on its shoulder--which is a choice
piece, much finer than the best beef--and the tongue, and a few other
parts. The tongues of buffaloes are superior to those of domestic
cattle. When all was ready the meat was slung across the back of the
pack-horse; and the party, remounting their horses, continued their
journey, having first cleansed themselves as well as they could in the
rather dirty waters of an old wallow.

"See," said Henri, turning to Dick and pointing to a circular spot of
green as they rode along, "that is one old _dry_ waller."

"Ay," remarked Joe; "after the waller dries, it becomes a ring o'
greener grass than the rest o' the plain, as ye see. Tis said the
first hunters used to wonder greatly at these myster'ous circles, and