when the horses were a little rested, we started, and, after riding a
mile or more, we came to a small ravine, where we found one poor
buffalo, too old and emaciated to keep up with his companions, and
who, therefore, had been abandoned by them, to die alone. He had eaten
the grass as far as he could reach, and had turned around and around
until the ground looked as though it had been spaded.

He got up on his old legs as we approached him, and tried to show
fight by dropping his head and throwing his horns to the front, but a
child could have pushed him over. One of the officers tried to
persuade me to shoot him, saying it would be a humane act, and at the
same time give me the prestige of having killed a buffalo! But the
very thought of pointing a pistol at anything so weak and utterly
helpless was revolting in the extreme. He was such an object of pity,
too, left there all alone to die of starvation, when perhaps at one
time he may have been leader of his herd. He was very tall, had a fine
head, with an uncommonly long beard, and showed every indication of
having been a grand specimen of his kind.

We left him undisturbed, but only a few minutes later we heard the
sharp report of a rifle, and at once suspected, what we learned to be
a fact the next day, that one of the men with the wagons had killed
him. Possibly this was the most merciful thing to do, but to me that
shot meant murder. The pitiful bleary eyes of the helpless old beast
have haunted me ever since we saw him.

We must have gone at least two miles farther before we saw the herd we
were looking for, making fifteen or sixteen miles altogether that we
had ridden. The buffalo were grazing quietly along a meadow in between
low, rolling hills. We immediately fell back a short distance and