The Republican

A Monarch Dethroned,

The most remarkable incident in my buffalo experience was a fight between two buffalo bulls over on the Cannonball river in Dakota, and of which I was the sole and only witness. I was riding slowly up a knoll thinking of anything but buffaloes, when I heard the most wonderful bellowing and crashing just ahead as if all pandemonium had turned loose to scare me out of my five senses. My horse raged and plunged, but quickly dismounting I lariated my steed, and between creeping and crawling managed to secure a safe observatory from which I could view the circus then in progress.

Two powerful buffalo bulls were going it hammer and tongs in furious efforts to butt each other's brains out. They had a little arena all to themselves, the rest of the herd forming a circle around, watching but not interfering, but waiting to drive the vanquished from the field in disgrace. Talk about your bull fights in Spain, your thousand-pound bulls battling with little matadors, no arena of ancient Spain, or Rome, or modern Mexico ever had two such fierce combatants face to face, nor has the tug of war or the fight for mastery ever been so determined and fierce as between those two monarchs of the plains on the Cannonball river. There had been only one crash before I took my reserved seat, but the concussion and crack of the blow might have been heard a mile. The fight had only just begun. After the first whack, the two champions sort of backed and eyed each other for a second crash. Then they lowered their heads, pawed the ground viciously for a few seconds, and came back at each other like a pair of freight trains coming from opposite directions on the same track. When the heads came together this time it was with a dull thump which led me to believe one or both craniums had been cracked on the first round. There they stuck-the two heads-and then both bulls began to push with all their might. The dogged, stubborn pushing lasted some minutes, until the white froth began to drop in long, tenacious strings from their lips, and the red eyes to glare through what appeared to be clots of blood. Somebody was hurt, for the crimson was dying the white froth as it fell to the ground. This dead set of strength could not last long. The tendons were standing out like ropes across the thighs and along the thick necks, and every moment was telling upon the short wind and straining of both antagonists. Although much of a size, I could see that one of the bulls was an old crusader, while the other was a youngster, evidently trying to drive the old man out of the herd. The old fellow's foot slipped, and the intelligence of the slight disaster seemed to burst upon his antagonist quicker than a flash of lightning. No gladiator ever urged his advantage more quickly. There was a sudden relaxation on the part of the young one, then a rush and a slipping of horns upon each other, followed by a raking upward stroke, and the horn of the younger bull had torn the flank of the old fellow from the leg along the neck to the chin. It was not a fatal stroke, but an exceedingly damaging one. Every time he was attacked the patriarch of the herd presented his war and weather-beaten head, but the youthful bison caught him again and again behind the shoulder until the blood was pouring in a perfect stream from the wound. With the agony of defeat in his eye, and growing weaker from the loss of blood, still the old fellow refused to be conquered. At last, with tongue hanging out, and panting for breath, he stood at bay, defeated and conquered, but still disdaining to retreat. The young bull pushed and gored him, but he made no attempt to defend his flanks. The rest of the herd drew in closer, snorted and shook their heads, while the cows, who had always regarded him as the head of the family, spitefully butted him in the ribs and walked away. Some of the young bulls gave him a contemptuous dig, until I thought the poor old fellow must have received a thousand wounds. He stood dogged and defiant, whipped, but still obstinate, and gradually the herd wandered further away and left him to himself. It was a sentence of banishment, and the sentence read: "To go and live as long as he could alone, and fight his last fight with coyotes and wolves and die." He watched the herd grow fainter as it wandered further away, and then turned his gaze in the opposite direction. Feeling his defeat keenly, without a friend in the world, covered with blood and disgrace, the poor old brute limped slowly and sadly from the spot. He dared not return to the herd, for the cows will gore a defeated bull to death, so he wandered slowly across the plains alone and disgraced, a beaten champion, sorely wounded and about to die, until he was lost to view in the distance and dust of the prairie. J. M. Trimble.