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"It's the Bull!" cried A'tim triumphantly. "Now, Brothers, we shall feast. Have I not spoken the truth?" On again sped the four Killers the four that were eager of blood; on through the thicket, and with suddenness out upon a plain that had been fire-swept years before a plain wide, and void of poplar, or spruce, or cottonwood.
For days they plodded over the prairie, cobwebbed into deep ruts by Buffalo trails leading from grassland to water. It was on the third day that A'tim said to the Buffalo Bull: "I am thirsty, Shag; my throat is hot with the dust. Know you of sweet drinking near even with your sense of the hidden drinking you can find it, Great Bull, can you not?"
"There," said A'tim, nodding his head at the bronze gold of the many Monkshood, "there is the Fur Flower. It will be dry eating now, being of a season's age, but in the early feed-time it is sweet and tender. While you eat of it I shall rest here." A strong rustling of grass almost at their heels caused the Dog-Wolf to spring to his feet in alarm. "Eu-h-h, eu-h-h! here is the accursed Cow again.
A'tim was petulantly unreasonable. Shag looked at the Dog-Wolf wonderingly. "I'm sorry for you, for your hunger, Dog Brother. Did I not call lovingly to a Moose Calf but to-day, thinking to entice him your way?" "Yes, and frightened the big-nosed, spindle-legged suckling with your gruff voice, so that what should have been an easy stalk turned out a long chase for nothing."
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?
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.
"There," he said finally, as he sat on his haunches and rested for a minute, looking like a ghoul in the ghostly moonlight, "I think that's a trick worthy of my Wolf cunning." Then he hastened back to the other Outcast. Shag was awake and heard the Dog-Wolf creep to his side. "Where have you been, A'tim?" he asked sleepily.
An honest hunter like myself, who only kills to stay the hunger that is bred in him, has no chance; we must sneak and steal, or die." "But there will be much waste of the Bacon Food there, surely, A'tim. Why do you not replenish the stomach that is but a curse to you, being empty, at the lodges we see?"
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.
As he gazed, the extent of territory between Shag and his pursuer widened perceptibly. The overworked Pony was tired; no doubt his rider had trailed for many a league with him, and he was in no condition for the fierce gallop of a Buffalo Run. A'tim finished the bacon with undoubted relish, then struck out across the boundless field of grass.
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