The Democratic Leader

A NARROW ESCAPE.
A Buffalo Hunter Is Charged by a Mad Bull.
A Trained Little Mustang-Danger from the Prairie Dog-A Terrible Fall and the Consequences.
(Cincinnati Enquirer.)
To run buffaloes, a horse trained as a buffalo runner is absolutely necessary. My business in Boise City just now is to procure such a horse. The little mustang which I have been riding was killed last week by a bad fall in the hole of a prairie dog; and, as this was the nearest city of any size, I borrowed a pony from a companion, came here and am now in the thick of a tussle with horse traders, with the odds in favor of the trader Actual trial in the hunting field is the only means of deciding a buffalo runner's qualities; and, although a buckskin nag who fills my eye in other respects is warranted by his owner to be the best buffalo runner in the west, the chances are if I buy him he will shy off at sight of a herd, and never bring me nearer to the game than 100 yards
A good buffalo runner will be fleet of foot, courageous, long-winded, and trained to carry his rider within a yard of the herd hunted, and then to range alongside of any animal selected. My mustang did this to perfection until brought to grief by a prairie dog.
This worthless creature is the buffalo's best friend, because of his villainous habit of burrowing in the plains over which the chase is apt to range, and hence making a thousand pitfalls for unwary horses. The buffaloes themselves occasionally break a leg in a marmot's hole; but the fact remains that the little animal has saved more specimens of the shaggy bos Americanus from sportsmen's bullets, killed more horses, maimed more riders and been cursed more lustily than any other denizen of the plains, from the redskin down to the coyote.
At the time of my mustang's fall I had a couple of narrow escapes from death. I had singled out as my meat an old bull with long, highly polished horns and the most magnificent mane that has ever came under my notice. I determined to have that head, and to carry it east with me as a trophy.
To single the brute from the herd and to plant a bullet from my revolver in his shoulder was an easy task, when aided by such a horse as mine. The remainder of the herd thundered off to the west with companions in full chase, and away toward the east went my wounded buffalo, with me a good second, sending a pill into his side whenever he swerved enough to give me a chance at his heart
Suddenly the idea seemed to enter his cranium that he was flying in a direct line from his friends, and he wheeled about and charged me, his magnificent head cocked sideways ready to toss my mustang, his nostrils and eyes blood-red, and the foam flying from his mouth. When the buffalo swerved my nag made a noble leap out of his course and landed with his off foreleg in a marmot's hole, bringing him to his knees, snapping the bone of his leg off like a stalk of straw and sending me headlong to the ground right in the path of the wounded bull. I was somewhat shaken up and could not think clearly, but my eyes were wide open and the approaching danger seemed like a weight on all my faculties, benumbing me so that I could not move so much as an eyelid, and thus increasing the horror of the situation.
The bull came on, his hoof rattling over the hard prairie like the bones of the end man in a minstrel show. His hot breath came full in my mouth and nostrils, leaving a bad taste on my tongue for the remainder of the day. One of his horns caught in the collar of my hunting-shirt, tearing it away, and then his hind hoof grazed my temple.
He was as glad to escape as I was myself, and careered over the prairie after the herd at a three-minute gait, while I arose and planted a merciful bullet from my revolver in the brain of my doomed mustang.
One day of this sort of thing is worth a year's dawdling about at the seashore in a seersucker coat.