midday
The other shooter came up , having shot nine , and reported that Considine had had a fall ; his horse , not being used to the country , had plunged up to his shoulders in a concealed buffalo-wallow , and turned right over on him . Luckily , the buffalo he was after was well ahead , and did not turn to charge him , but he was very much shaken ; when he came up , however , he insisted on going on . They set to work to find the rest of the dead buffaloes -- no easy matter in that long grass -- and all hands commenced skinning . This job kept them till noonday , when they camped under some trees for their midday meal , hobbling the horses . Then they rested for an hour or two , packed the hides on the pack-horses -LRB- and heavily loaded they were , each hide weighing about a hundredweight -RRB- , and went back to the hunt , scanning the plain carefully . They were all riding together through a belt of timber , the blacks and the Chinaman being well up with the pack-horses , when suddenly the blacks burst out with great excitement . `` Buff ` lo !