"
Paul did not ask what it was, content to go and see, and the two, rifle on
shoulder, slipped away through the woods, taking a direct, western course.
Paul noticed that the country soon became much less hilly, and that the
forest thinned. After a while hills and forest ceased altogether and the
two stood upon the edge of a wide sweep of gently rolling, open country,
extending so far that it met the horizon.
"Look," said Henry. "A great prairie!"
"And look what's on it!" exclaimed Paul.
Henry laughed and glanced at his comrade's pleased face. As far as the eye
could reach the prairie was covered with a multitude of great, dark
animals, grazing on the short, sweet grass. Near by these animals, as Paul
saw, were a few feet apart, but further on they seemed to blend into one
solid, black, but heaving mass.
"A real buffalo herd," said Henry.
Paul had seen buffaloes often in Kentucky, but there they were usually in
small groups of a dozen or so, owing to the wooded nature of the country,
and now he looked for the first time upon a great herd, twenty thousand,
thirty thousand, maybe more--one could not calculate. The spectacle
appealed greatly to his imaginative temperament.
"What a grand sight!" he said.
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