Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/188

 distant object again. Presently he was satisfied. No bull of the wild black cattle, which were generally lean and undersized, could bulk so large. It was a buffalo, he was sure; yet for years buffalo had been practically unknown in the Low Country—where, indeed, they had never been abundant, preferring the uplands where the prairie-meadows were more extensive. Burliegh marked the spot where the bull was feeding, then rode on at a quicker pace to the edge of the woods.

There he decided that breakfast could wait. The lone bull out on the prairie interested him and something in its shape puzzled him. A short ride just within the forest margin would afford him a better view. He broke a sapling to show his comrades the direction he had taken. Then he set off at a brisk canter at right angles to his former course.

No undergrowth hampered his pony's progress through the splendid parklike forest of gigantic white oak and red oak, hickory, magnolia and beech, alive with gray squirrels and fox squirrels, some of the latter coal-black save for white noses and ears. Many times deer lying just within the woods-edge bounded away before him, most of them running out into the open. A large flock of brilliant green and yellow parrakeets, screaming like mad, passed low over his head. Alighting on the ground a little distance to the left, they covered a space fifty