José — page 81: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

74 | JOSE. had rapidly followed the buffaloes. Selecting the largest, he dashed madly onward without heeding the remainder of the herd, quickly scattering to all sides of him. It was the first buffalo he had ever pursued, but he had thoroughly familiarized him- self with the theory of the hunt before setting out upon the journey, in order that he might not be re- garded as a novice by his crew, and hence knew perfectly well that, mounted and with proper care, the danger was comparatively small. He readily gained the left side of the fleeing brute, sufficiently near that he had only to raise his rifle and pull the trigger. Taking advantage of an auspicious mo- ment, he aimed and fired. The bull leaped high up into the air and then stopped with such suddenness that Green’s horse shot far ahead. He pulled his an- imal about, in the supposition that the buffalo had received a mortal wound and would fall over in his death throes. To his profound astonishment his eyes encountered two cruel, fiery orbs in the lowered head of the buffalo, for an instant regarding him with a look of fierce rage; and with his horns tearing up the ground, the maddened brute made straight for the startled hunter. The condition of affairs had changed with such rapidity, that Green could not have mustered his presence of mind with sufficient dispatch to have escaped the fearful onset of the wounded brute, but for the promptaction of his horse, which, leaping aside, in terror, suddenly turned about and in a direct line bounded away at the top of its speed. Green had quickly regained his self-pos- session, but only in time to see the maddened bull raging in pursuit, scarcely ten steps behind his horse’s hoofs. Drawing a pistol and aiming as best he could, he fired a second shot; but the buffalo Gomicbooks.co