Savage sports—­Living cataracts—­An alarm—­Indians and their doings—­The stampede—­Charlie again.

One day Dick Varley was out on a solitary hunting expedition near the rocky gorge where his horse had received temporary burial a week or two before.  Crusoe was with him, of course.  Dick had tied Charlie to a tree, and was sunning himself on the edge of a cliff, from the top of which he had a fine view of the valley and the rugged precipices that hemmed it in.

Just in front of the spot on which he sat, the precipices on the opposite side of the gorge rose to a considerable height above him, so that their ragged outlines were drawn sharply across the clear sky.  Dick was gazing in dreamy silence at the jutting rocks and dark caverns, and speculating on the probable number of bears that dwelt there, when a slight degree of restlessness on the part of Crusoe attracted him.

“What is’t, pup?” said he, laying his hand on the dog’s broad back.

Crusoe looked the answer, “I don’t know, Dick, but it’s something, you may depend upon it, else I would not have disturbed you.”

Dick lifted his rifle from the ground, and laid it in the hollow of his left arm.

“There must be something in the wind,” remarked Dick.

As wind is known to be composed of two distinct gases, Crusoe felt perfectly safe in replying “Yes” with his tail.  Immediately after he added, “Hallo! did you hear that?” with his ears.

Dick did hear it, and sprang hastily to his feet, as a sound like, yet unlike, distant thunder came faintly down upon the breeze.  In a few seconds the sound increased to a roar in which was mingled the wild cries of men.  Neither Dick nor Crusoe moved, for the sounds came from behind the heights in front of them, and they felt that the only way to solve the question, “What can the sounds be?” was to wait till the sounds should solve it themselves.

Suddenly the muffled sounds gave place to the distinct bellowing of cattle, the clatter of innumerable hoofs, and the yells of savage men, while at the same moment the edges of the opposite cliffs became alive with Indians and buffaloes rushing about in frantic haste—­the former almost mad with savage excitement, the latter with blind rage and terror.

On reaching the edge of the dizzy precipice, the buffaloes turned abruptly and tossed their ponderous heads as they coursed along the edge.  Yet a few of them, unable to check their headlong course, fell over, and were dashed to pieces on the rocks below.  Such falls, Dick observed, were hailed with shouts of delight by the Indians, whose sole object evidently was to enjoy the sport of driving the terrified animals over the precipice.  The wily savages had chosen their ground well for this purpose.