"fellers I knew:" how HE himself had once brought down a "bull" by a
bold shot with a revolver through its open bellowing mouth that pierced
his "innards;" how a friend of his--an intimate in fact--now in jail at
Louisville for killing a sheriff's deputy, had once found himself alone
and dismounted with a simple clasp-knife and a lariat among a herd of
buffaloes; how, leaping calmly upon the shaggy shoulders of the biggest
bull, he lashed himself with the lariat firmly to its horns, goading it
onward with his clasp-knife, and subsisting for days upon the flesh cut
from its living body, until, abandoned by its fellows and exhausted
by the loss of blood, it finally succumbed to its victor at the very
outskirts of the camp to which he had artfully driven it! It must be
confessed that this recital somewhat took away Clarence's breath, and
he would have liked to ask a few questions. But they were alone on the
prairie, and linked by a common transgression; the glorious sun was
coming up victoriously, the pure, crisp air was intoxicating their
nerves; in the bright forecast of youth everything WAS possible!

The surface of the bottom land that they were crossing was here and
there broken up by fissures and "potholes," and some circumspection in
their progress became necessary. In one of these halts, Clarence was
struck by a dull, monotonous jarring that sounded like the heavy regular
fall of water over a dam. Each time that they slackened their pace the
sound would become more audible, and was at last accompanied by that
slight but unmistakable tremor of the earth that betrayed the vicinity
of a waterfall. Hesitating over the phenomenon, which seemed to imply
that their topography was wrong and that they had blundered from the
track, they were presently startled by the fact that the sound was
actually APPROACHING them! With a sudden instinct they both galloped
towards the lagoon. As the timber opened before them Jim uttered a long
ecstatic shout. "Why, it's THEM!"