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Updated: May 24, 2025
"They are even as yourself, Great Bull; driven from the plains by the many-breathed Fire-stick, they have come to this good Range of the Northland. They go not in Herds, but few together, as Mooswa and others of the forest." "Why did she run away, Brother A'tim?" grunted Shag, lying down to rest. The Dog-Wolf laughed disagreeably. "That is but the way of the Cow kind," he answered.
What say you, sons? Perhaps it is the Buffalo of which the Lone Dog speaks. Phew-yi, hi! Another trail call. Here are two of these big-footed creatures, be they Buffalo, or what you spoke of but one, Lone Dog; Wolves do not tackle a Herd." "Only a silly Cow," answered A'tim. "She will flee at the first blood cry." The big Wolf softened a trifle. Surely here was prospect of a mighty Kill.
You, A'tim, who are half Wolf, know how it comes that where one of your kind puts his teeth, the flesh, sooner or later, melts away, and leaves but a hole how is it, A'tim?" "Foul teeth," growled the Dog-Wolf. "They're a mean lot, are the Gray Runners; even I, who am half of their kind, bear them no love have they not outcasted me because of my Dog blood?
Then, with a Dog thought for the morrow, he stole four huge pieces of choice meat, and cached them in the little coulee where waited Shag. "Ah! you've come back, Brother," said the Bull, as A'tim crept complacently to his side. "I was afraid something might have happened to you, for hunger often carries us into unknown danger." "E-u-h-h! but it was a mighty Kill, Shag.
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.
When the last Squaw, weary of the blood toil, curled beneath her blanket, A'tim crept to the meat piles. All the energy of his rested stomach urged him to the feasting; there was no stint. Surely no Swift-runner, Dog or Wolf, ever had such a choosing. The Pack-Dogs kept the Wolves at bay, but with A'tim was the scent of their own kind, the Dog scent.
It would hold warm because of this, and grow again, and become green; then the white cover would go, and the grass would freeze and become sour to the tongue. Mou-u-ah! but all through the Cold Time I would have great pains. How far do we go now, A'tim, till we rest in the Northland?" "Till there is food for both of us." "Quite true," concurred Shag.
"What say you to a Buffalo a fat, young Bull?" asked A'tim, heaving a sigh of relief; "would not that be a dinner fit for a great Pack Leader, like yourself?" "A Buffalo?" queried the Wolf incredulously. "I have heard of such in these forests, but I come from the North, and have never seen them have we, Sons?" "Never," they answered, closing in on A'tim.
Once bitten is twice shy with me; and, as you see, I carry the Tribe mark of your Wolf-kind in my thigh since the time I was a Calf." "Ghur-r-r! Of the Wolf-kind, quite true, Great Bull that is their way; but I, who am no Wolf, but a Dog, do not seek to hamstring my friends." The Bull answered nothing, but as they journeyed watched his companion carefully. "Dreadfully foolish!" mused A'tim.
"What are you laughing at, Bull?" demanded A'tim angrily. "I, who am an Outcast because of my great age, Dog-Wolf, am even now a great Fool; and so art thou, A'tim, an Outcast and a Fool." "Your wit is like yourself, Shag, heavy and not too pleasing. Pray, why am I a Fool!"
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