comrades vouchsafed him no assistance in his extremity. Men of such
accurate aim and constant practice could easily risk sending a
rifle-ball past him to stop that furious career. He could see the pupil
of the bull's wild dilated eyes, fiery as with a spark of actual flame.
He could even feel the hot puffs of the creature's breath upon his
cheeks, when all at once the horned head so close above his own swerved
aside with a snort from the dead body of the wolf at his feet. The bull
passed him like a thunderbolt, and he heard the infuriated stamping
which fairly shook the ground in the thicket below, where this king of
the herds paused to bellow and paw the earth, throwing clods high above
the environing copse.

The woods seemed full of maddened, frightened cattle, and Emsden's horse
was frantically galloping after the cavalcade of hunters and their
pack-train, all the animals more or less beyond the control of the men.
He felt it an ill chance that left him thus alone and afoot in this
dense wilderness, several days' travel from the station. He was hardly
sure that he would be missed by his comrades, themselves scattered, the
pack-horses having broken from the path which they had traveled in
single file, and now with their burdens of value all foolishly careering
wildly through the woods. The first prudential care of the hunters he
knew would be to recover them and re-align the train, lest some
miscreant, encountering the animals, plunder the estrays of their loads
of hard-won deerskins and furs.

The presence of cattle suggested to Emsden the proximity of human
dwellings, and yet this was problematic, for beyond branding and
occasional saltings the herds ranged within large bounds on lands
selected for their suitability as pasturage. The dwellings of these
pioneer herdsmen might be far away indeed, and in what direction he