class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 18]"/> "a beautiful land, with pea-vine knee-deep, and grass the Men call blue-joint, that fair tops my back when I walk through it. As for drink! why, one day in a single tramp I crossed sixteen streams of beautiful running water."

"Are you dreaming, A'tim?" asked Shag, touching the Dog-Wolf's back with the battered point of his stub-horn.

"No, Bull; and there are few hunters in that land, and few of your kind; and shelter of forest against the White Storm; and buttes and coulees everywhere."

"An ideal Range," muttered the Bull; "is it far?"

"Perhaps half a moon—perhaps a whole moon from here to there, just as one's feet stand the trail."

"You make me long for that great feeding," sighed Shag enviously.

"Yes, you'd be better in the Northland, Shag," said the Dog-Wolf, sleepily —"better there. Here you are an Outcast, even as I am."

"Yes, after the big Kill to-morrow," sighed the Bull mournfully, "I shall want to trail somewhere. Across Kootenay River is good feeding-ground, but there the accursed Long Knives are filled with the very devil of destruction, and kill even such as I am, though my hide is not worth the lifting. I, who am an Outcast, and have lost all pride, know this—I am worthless."

The bubbling monotone of the old Bull had put A'tim to sleep. He was giving vent to gasping snores and plaintive whimpers, and his legs were twitching spasmodically; he was dreaming of the chase. Shag turned his massive head and watched the nervous Dog-Wolf with heavy, tired eyes. "He is chasing the reed-legged Antelope now; or, perhaps, even in his sleep, Camous pursues him with the many-breathed Fire-stick. Well, well, by my hump, but we all have our troubles; even this Dog-Wolf, who is not half my age, has lived into the hard winter of life."

Then Shag rested his black-whiskered chin on the soft turf, his tired eyelids, mange-shaved, drooped over the age-blurred eyes, and these two Outcasts, so strangely mated, driven together by adversity, slept in the coulee of Belly Buttes.

A cold, weakling gray-light was touching with ghastly fresco the Belly Buttes when A'tim stretched out his paw and scratched impatiently at Shag's leather side. The Bull came back slowly out of his heavy sleep.

"Gently, Wolf Brother," he cried petulantly; "your claws are wondrous strong, and my side has many sore spots—love scars from my Brother Bulls."

"You'll have worse than Bull scars if you don't wake up," answered A'tim; "can't you hear something?"

Shag tipped his massive head sideways with drowsy inquiry, the heavy lids opening in unwilling laziness. A muffled, palpitating beat was in the sulky morning air; it was like the monotonous thump of a war drum over on the Reserve.

"What is it?" queried the Bull, raising his head with full-aged dignity.

"Eagle Shoe's pinto is pounding the trail; the Run is on," answered A'tim.

Shag heaved his huge body to his knees wearily, struggled to his feet with stiff-limbed action, and shook his gaunt sides.

"You needn't do that," sneered A'tim; "not much grass sticks to your coat now."

"No, it's only force of habit," grunted Shag. "And to think of the time when my beautiful hair was the envy of the whole range; for I was a Silk-Coat, you know—a rare thing in Bulls, to be sure. But I'm not that now; when I look in the lake waters and see only this miserable ruff about my neck, and scant tuft on my tail, I feel sad—feel ashamed. The tongue of the lake tells me all that, Brother, so say no more about it."

"Wait you here, Shag," commanded A'tim; "I will go up on a Butte and see the method of these hunters; my eyes are younger than yours, Herd Leader."

When the Dog-Wolf returned he said: "Eagle Shoe is riding far to the South; let us follow in the river flat and see this Run, for it will be a mighty Kill. O-o-o-h! but I am empty—famished!"

"Always of blood," muttered the Bull to himself—"always of blood and meat eating; Wolf and Dog; Dog-Wolf and Man—always full of the blood thought and the desire for a Kill."

They could hear the thud of pony hoofs on the dry prairie's hollow drum as they traveled, winding in and out the tangle of willow bushes that followed the river. Then the hoof beats died away, and A'tim said: "Now he has circled to the West—that means something; let us go up and see."

They stole up the old river bank to the brow of the uplands. A mile off they could see Eagle Shoe standing beside his cayuse. As they watched, the Blood Indian stooped, caught up a handful of black earth-dust and threw it high in air. That was sign talk, and told his comrades who were hiding on the prairie that he saw many Buffalo—Buffalo many as the grains of sand cast to the wind.

Then he trailed his blanket behind him as he walked beside his ewe-necked pinto, and two Indians stole stealthily from their prairie cover like Coyotes, and followed Eagle Shoe.

"Ah!" muttered Shag, as he and A'tim went forward slowly, "I know. This Indian has the cunning of a whole Wolf-Pack; is that not so, Brother? King Animals!" he exclaimed, in a great voice like the low of the wind coming through a mountain gorge; "is that not the Herd yonder, clear-eyed Dog-Wolf?"

"By the chance of meat, it is—a mighty Herd, Shag; such a Herd as the Caribou make in the Northland when they mate."

"Now the Buffalo see Eagle Shoe," continued Shag; "but they have no wisdom; they but see some one thing that has life. Perhaps they will even say: 'It is only old Shag, the Outcast; let us feed in peace.' Their eyes are the eyes of Calves, and their noses tell them nothing, for the hunt Man is down Wind, is he not, A'tim?"

"Surely, Brother; even a moneas, a green hunter of a Paleface, would know better than to send the flavor of his presence on the Wind's back."

"Yes, even so," continued Shag. "See how gently he moves toward them. Danger! One Bull's head is up; he has discovered that it is not a Buffalo; now he has whispered to the others, for they are moving slowly. Thou hast spoken truth, A'tim—a strange thing for a Dog-Wolf, too," he muttered to himself—"it will be a mighty Kill. How slowly the Herd moves; they are not afraid of the one animal, whatever it is—one, did I say, A'tim? Look you, Brother, for you have the Wolf-eyes: are there not three now—three Kill drivers?"

"Yes, three Indians," answered the Dog-Wolf. "The same old Hunt. I've watched it many a time from behind the runners; I know every trick of these slayers. Now the Run surely begins; let us close up, Shag, for the hunters will have no eyes for such as us; their hearts are full of the killing of many Buffalo. Also, there will be much meat warm to a cold stomach to-night;" and he licked his chops greedily.

"I don't like it," muttered Shag; "the Palefaces, with their many-breathed Fire-sticks, have killed my people, and have driven them up from the South, and now they are gathered together in a few mighty Herds such as this. The Redmen, who have