The spectacle, as observed by the girl some twenty feet from the
ground, might be likened somewhat to a turbulent sea when a sturdy
tide sets against the storm, and the mad waves tumble hither and
thither, foiled and impelled, yet for all the confusion and
obstruction moving in one direction with a sweep and a force that no
power could chain.

Circling among and around the strange dusk clouds of steam that went
up from the herd were scores of turkey buzzards, their obscene heads
bent downward, their sodden eyes gleaming with expectancy. Well they
knew that many a gorgeous feast awaited them wherever boulder, tree
or swamp lay in the path of the mighty herd. At last the face of the
prairie had ceased its surging; no lurid eye-ball light gleamed out
of the dusk; and the tempest of cattle had passed, and went rolling
out into the unbounded stretches of the dim, yellow plain.

When the ground was clear she descended from the tree, every limb
trembling, lest in the delay the Indians should have accomplished
their object. When she reached her horse, she found near by a heap of
dead and struggling buffalo, which in their headlong race had run
over the bluff front of the boulder. When she resumed her gallop she
observed that the great amplitude of rich grasses was like unto a
ploughed field. The herbage had been literally crushed into mire, and
this the innumerable hoofs had churned up with the soft rich soil.
The leguminous odors of the trodden clover and the rank masses of
wild pease, together with the dank earthy smell of the broken sod,
rose offensively in the girl's face. Her course now lay along an
upland covered with straggling copses of white oak and poplar. In the
dim valley beyond, lying drunken under the moonlight, was Hickory
Bush. Upon the solid crest of the little hill the hoofs rang out