As our adventurers were riding joyfully along, over a beautiful prairie country, on the right side of the river, a magnificent herd of buffalo came up from the water over the bank, not less then seven or eight hundred in number, and commenced slowly crossing the plain, grazing as they went.  The prairie was here about three miles broad.  This gave the hunters a fine opportunity to charge upon them before they could escape among the distant hills.  The fleet horses for hunting, were brought up and saddled.  Lieutenant Fremont, Kit Carson and L. Maxwell mounted for the chase.  Maxwell was a veteran pioneer, who had been engaged as hunter for the expedition.

The herd were about half a mile distant from the company.  The three hunters rode quietly along, till within about three hundred yards of the herd, before they seemed to be noticed by the buffaloes.  Then a sudden agitation and wavering of the herd was followed by precipitate and thundering flight.  The fleet horse can outstrip the buffalo in the race.  The three hunters plunged after them at a hard gallop.  A crowd of bulls, gallantly defending the cows, brought up the rear.  Every now and then they would stop, for an instant, and look back as if half disposed to show fight.

“In a few moments,” writes Lieutenant Fremont, “during which we had been quickening our pace, we were going over the ground like a hurricane.  When at about thirty yards we gave the usual shout and broke into the herd.  We entered on the side, the mass giving away in every direction in their heedless course.  Many of the bulls, less fleet than the cows, paying no heed to the ground, and occupied solely with the hunters, were precipitated to the earth with great force, rolling over and over with the violence of the shock, and hardly distinguishable in the dust.  We separated, on entering, each singling out his game.

“My horse was a trained hunter, famous in the west under the name of Proveau, and with his eyes flashing and the foam flying from his mouth, he sprang on after the cow, like a tiger.  In a few moments he brought me along side of her.  Rising in the stirrups, I fired, at the distance of a yard, the ball entering at the termination of the long hair, passing near the heart.  She fell headlong at the report of the gun.  Checking my horse, I looked around for my companions.

“At a little distance Kit was on the ground, engaged in tying his horse to the horns of a cow, which he was preparing to cut up.  Among the scattered band, at some distance, I caught a glimpse of Maxwell.  While I was looking, a light wreath of white smoke curled away from his gun, from which I was too far to hear the report.  Nearer, and between me and the hills, towards which they were directing their course, was the body of the herd.  Giving my horse the rein, we dashed after them.  A thick cloud of dust hung upon their rear, which filled my mouth and eyes and nearly smothered me.  In the midst of this I could see nothing, and the buffalo were not distinguishable until within thirty feet.  They crowded together more densely still, as I came upon them, and rushed along in such a compact body that I could not obtain an entrance, the horse almost leaping upon them.