Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/207

 seen through the smoke, by his watering eyes, the cow had given a great leap and had vanished.

She had run the other way, down the basin. Up Stub leaped, and ran, too. The basin seemed to be still echoing with the report, but he heard the thud and clatter of hoofs, also, and a fear that he had missed her made his heart sick.

He panted into full sight of the little basin just in time to see a half score—no, a dozen or more of the burly animals pelting through for the other end, to gain the open of the main valley. He'd had no idea that so many were in here. They'd been hidden from him, the most of them—lying in cosy beds where he'd not happened to look.

Away they went, jostling and stringing out, bolting blindly. One, the last in the flight, loped painfully—fell farther and farther behind. It was his cow! He had hit her, and hit her hard. Hoorah! He darted for the spot where she had stood. He trailed her for a few steps, and the trampled snow was blotched red. Blood! Hoorah! He ran on, down through the basin, to see her again. Now Baroney or the doctor might get her, because she would grow weak.

He wondered if they had heard him shoot. The basin was empty, all the buffalo had charged on into the valley—that was what he had wished them to do,