Alack! that redoubtable hero and mighty hunter was, to all appearances, equally speechless and astonished.  It was true that he remained rooted to the saddle, a lank, still heroic figure, alternately grasping his hatchet and gun with a kind of spasmodic regularity.  How long he would have continued this would never be known, for the next moment, with a deafening crash, the herd broke through the brush, and, swerving at the right of the lagoon, bore down directly upon them.  All further doubt or hesitation on their part was stopped.  The farseeing, sagacious Mexican plug with a terrific snort wheeled and fled furiously with his rider.  Moved, no doubt, by touching fidelity, Clarence’s humbler team-horse instantly followed.  In a few moments those devoted animals struggled neck to neck in noble emulation.

“What are we goin’ off this way for?” gasped the simple Clarence.

“Peyton and Gildersleeve are back there—­and they’ll see us,” gasped Jim in reply.  It struck Clarence that the buffaloes were much nearer them than the hunting party, and that the trampling hoofs of a dozen bulls were close behind them, but with another gasp he shouted,

“When are we going to hunt ’em?”

“Hunt them!” screamed Jim, with a hysterical outburst of truth; “why, they’re huntin’ us—­dash it!”

Indeed, there was no doubt that their frenzied horses were flying before the equally frenzied herd behind them.  They gained a momentary advantage by riding into one of the fissures, and out again on the other side, while their pursuers were obliged to make a detour.  But in a few minutes they were overtaken by that part of the herd who had taken the other and nearer side of the lagoon, and were now fairly in the midst of them.  The ground shook with their trampling hoofs; their steaming breath, mingling with the stinging dust that filled the air, half choked and blinded Clarence.  He was dimly conscious that Jim had wildly thrown his hatchet at a cow buffalo pressing close upon his flanks.  As they swept down into another gully he saw him raise his fateful gun with utter desperation.  Clarence crouched low on his horse’s outstretched neck.  There was a blinding flash, a single stunning report of both barrels; Jim reeled in one way half out of the saddle, while the smoking gun seemed to leap in another over his head, and then rider and horse vanished in a choking cloud of dust and gunpowder.  A moment after Clarence’s horse stopped with a sudden check, and the boy felt himself hurled over its head into the gully, alighting on something that seemed to be a bounding cushion of curled and twisted hair.  It was the shaggy shoulder of an enormous buffalo!  For Jim’s desperate random shot and double charge had taken effect on the near hind leg of a preceding bull, tearing away the flesh and ham-stringing the animal, who had dropped in the gully just in front of Clarence’s horse.