Our own horses now showed signs of fatigue, and we resolved to give them half a day’s rest.  We stopped at noon at a grassy spot by the river.  After dinner Shaw and Henry went out to hunt; and while the men lounged about the camp, I lay down to read in the shadow of the cart.  Looking up, I saw a bull grazing alone on the prairie more than a mile distant.  I was tired of reading, and taking my rifle I walked toward him.  As I came near, I crawled upon the ground until I approached to within a hundred yards; here I sat down upon the grass and waited till he should turn himself into a proper position to receive his death-wound.  He was a grim old veteran.  His loves and his battles were over for that season, and now, gaunt and war-worn, he had withdrawn from the herd to graze by himself and recruit his exhausted strength.  He was miserably emaciated; his mane was all in tatters; his hide was bare and rough as an elephant’s, and covered with dried patches of the mud in which he had been wallowing.  He showed all his ribs whenever he moved.  He looked like some grizzly old ruffian grown gray in blood and violence, and scowling on all the world from his misanthropic seclusion.  The old savage looked up when I first approached, and gave me a fierce stare; then he fell to grazing again with an air of contemptuous indifference.  The moment after, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he threw up his head, faced quickly about, and to my amazement came at a rapid trot directly toward me.  I was strongly impelled to get up and run, but this would have been very dangerous.  Sitting quite still I aimed, as he came on, at the thin part of the skull above the nose.  After he had passed over about three-quarters of the distance between us, I was on the point of firing, when, to my great satisfaction, he stopped short.  I had full opportunity of studying his countenance; his whole front was covered with a huge mass of coarse matted hair, which hung so low that nothing but his two forefeet were visible beneath it; his short thick horns were blunted and split to the very roots in his various battles, and across his nose and forehead were two or three large white scars, which gave him a grim and at the same time a whimsical appearance.  It seemed to me that he stood there motionless for a full quarter of an hour, looking at me through the tangled locks of his mane.  For my part, I remained as quiet as he, and looked quite as hard; I felt greatly inclined to come to term with him.  “My friend,” thought I, “if you’ll let me off, I’ll let you off.”  At length he seemed to have abandoned any hostile design.  Very slowly and deliberately he began to turn about; little by little his side came into view, all be-plastered with mud.  It was a tempting sight.  I forgot my prudent intentions, and fired my rifle; a pistol would have served at that distance.  Round spun old bull like a top, and away he galloped over the prairie.  He ran some distance, and even ascended a considerable hill, before he lay down and died.  After shooting another bull among the hills, I went back to camp.