The others felt their nerves jump as they topped the ridge and saw fully the vast concourse of giant black-topped, beard-fronted creatures which covered the plateau in a body a mile and more across—­a sight which never failed to thrill any who saw it.

It was a rolling carpet of brown, like the prairie’s endless wave of green.  Dust clouds of combat rose here and there.  A low muttering rumble of hoarse dull bellowing came audible even at that distance.  The spectacle was to the novice not only thrilling—­it was terrifying.

The general movement of the great pack was toward the valley; closest to them a smaller body of some hundreds that stood, stupidly staring, not yet getting the wind of their assailants.

Suddenly rose the high-pitched yell of the scout, sounding the charge.  Snorting, swerving, the horses of the others followed his, terror smitten but driven in by men most of whom at least knew how to ride.

Smoothly as a bird in flight, Bridger’s trained buffalo horse closed the gap between him and a plunging bunch of the buffalo.  The white savage proved himself peer of any savage of the world.  His teeth bared as he threw his body into the bow with a short, savage jab of the left arm as he loosed the sinew cord.  One after another feather showed, clinging to a heaving flank; one after another muzzle dripped red with the white foam of running; then one after another great animal began to slow; to stand braced, legs apart; soon to begin slowly kneeling down.  The living swept ahead, the dying lay in the wake.

The insatiate killer clung on, riding deep into the surging sea of rolling humps.  At times, in savage sureness and cruelty, he did not ride abreast and drive the arrow into the lungs, but shot from the rear, quartering, into the thin hide back of the ribs, so that the shaft ranged forward into the intestines of the victim.  If it did not bury, but hung free as the animal kicked at it convulsively, he rode up, and with his hand pushed the shaft deeper, feeling for the life, as the Indians called it, with short jabs of the imbedded missile.  Master of an old trade he was, and stimulated by the proofs of his skill, his followers emulated him with their own weapons.  The report of firearms, muffled by the rolling thunder of hoofs, was almost continuous so long as the horses could keep touch with the herd.

Bridger paused only when his arrows were out, and grumbled to himself that he had no more, so could count only a dozen fallen buffalo for his product.  That others, wounded, carried off arrows, he called bad luck and bad shooting.  When he trotted back on his reeking horse, his quiver dancing empty, he saw other black spots than his own on the short grass.  His followers had picked up the art not so ill.  There was meat in sight now, certainly—­as well as a half dozen unhorsed riders and three or four wounded buffalo disposed to fight.