CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
SUPPING UPON A SKELETON.
Our young travellers had now arrived upon the great buffalo-path.
Without halting, they turned their horses to the right, and followed the trail.

It led directly towards the north, and they had no difficulty in following it, as the prairie, for a tract of miles in width, was cut up by the hoofs of the animals; and, in some parts, where the ground was softer and more loamy, the surface presented the appearance of having been turned up by the plough! At other places the hard green turf had resisted the hoof, but even there the grass was so beaten down, that the trail was a perfectly plain one.

Without troubling themselves about the direction, therefore, the little party rode briskly forward, full of hope that they would soon overtake the buffaloes.

But their hopes were not so soon to be realised.

These animals had gone upon their annual migration to the north; and as they were keeping almost continually upon the run--scarcely stopping to rest or pasture themselves--it would be no easy matter to come up with them.