Free Hard Gold by Avi Page B

was with me, but felt compelled to continue on. Now and again Mr. Mawr glanced back as if to make sure I was following.
    I soon realized we were moving ever closer to that herd of buffalo we’d seen. They were grazing, great heads down, moving slowly in our direction. By then we had come so far that the undulating land made it impossible to see either our wagons or the fort. Nor, I realized, could anyone see us. There was nothing else on the prairie save a dead cottonwood tree, which stood like some lost, forlorn creature.
    Feeling isolated, I felt a tickle of fright and stopped. “Where are we going?” I called.
    Without pausing, Mr. Mawr turned in his saddle and said, “You can start collecting. Plenty of chips here about. I’m going to scout on farther. Maybe shoot a buffalo.”
    There being nothing out of place in that, I merely nodded, and watched, relieved, as he put heels to his horse and galloped toward the great herd.
    I set about my task, throwing the dry chips into the bag, though occasionally I looked up and around to see where Mr. Mawr had gone. He was out of sight.
    Meanwhile the buffalo herd continued to drift closer to me, so close that I began to wonder if I—who had no desire to be among the beasts—should not start going back on my own. In any case, my sack was almost full.
    Resolved to pick up a few more chips, I bent over, only to hear two sharp pistol reports. I looked up and searched in the direction from which the shots had come. My first thought was that Mr. Mawr was at his hunting.
    The buffalo lifted their great heads.
    Two more shots rang out.
    Something else happened so very quickly, I wasn’t sure I was seeing right. In an instant, or so it seemed, the buffalo transformed themselves from a tranquil, grazing herd into a panic-driven mass galloping in my direction, the sound of their feet striking the ground with tremendous thundering.
    They had been startled by the shots.
    For some few seconds, I stood transfixed, until my disbelief gave way to an understanding as to the grave danger I was in: the mass of beasts was stampeding, and I was directly in their way. They would not stop or turn from me—so very insignificant—but trample me to death.

    If you took this picture and multiplied it fifty times fifty, you might get a sense of all those buffalo we saw on the plains.
    Even as I stood there, horrified, I recalled that solitary tree some yards away. In less time than it takes to recount, I dashed toward it frantically, running as fast as I have ever sped. As I ran, I kept glancing at the beasts that were closing in on me, their shaggy horned heads low, bellowing and braying, foam spewing from their mouths and large nostrils, the beat of their hooves making a calamitous noise that shook the earth itself, even as a cloud of dust and clods filled the air.
    At the last moment, I leaped upon the tree and climbed faster than any cat could climb. Some eight feet above the ground, I held to a branch, with little doubt I was clinging to my life.
    Like a river on a rampage, the buffalo flowed all about me, an immense moving dark brown mass, churning up clouds of choking dust and deafening sound, thunderous enough to make the dead tree shake as if to come back to trembling life.
    I am not sure how long I stayed on that tree, my heart doing its own pounding, my arm muscles aching with my desperate hold. The sheer number of the animals seemed infinite. But it was almost impossible to see because of the dust that whirled and whipped around me.
    Their passing may have lasted for as long as twenty minutes. But after charging by and going on, and with no further shots to alarm them, they began to calm themselves. I soon saw them grazing peacefully not half a mile away, as if nothing untoward had occurred.
    I dropped to the ground, my legs so weak and wobbly, I could hardly stand. I sat down, back propped against the tree that had saved me, struggling to find breath and wits.
    After some minutes, I pulled