The pace of the buffalo is clumsy, and
_apparently_ slow, yet, when chased, he dashes away over the plains in
blind blundering terror, at a rate that leaves all but good horses
far behind. He cannot keep the pace up, however, and is usually soon
overtaken. Were the buffalo capable of the same alert and agile
motions of head and eye peculiar to the deer or wild horse, in
addition to his "bovine rage," he would be the most formidable brute
on earth. There is no object, perhaps, so terrible as the headlong
advance of a herd of these animals when thoroughly aroused by terror.
They care not for their necks. All danger in front is forgotten, or
not seen, in the terror of that from which they fly. No thundering
cataract is more tremendously irresistible than the black bellowing
torrent which sometimes pours through the narrow defiles of the Rocky
Mountains, or sweeps like a roaring flood over the trembling plains.
The wallowing, to which we have referred, is a luxury usually indulged
in during the hot months of summer, when the buffaloes are tormented
by flies, and heat, and drought.
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