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Updated: May 24, 2025
Or will they just lie down and die, as my people do when the White Storm blots out all the grass food?" "I do not know, Great Bull," answered A'tim. "To-night I shall be full of much meat, perhaps even to-morrow; after that I know not what may come with the warm trail of the sun." The Outcasts saw the two Indians ride into the eye of the Wind that blew up from the South across the Herd.
"Well done, my big Bull!" he exclaimed; "that was a rare turn you did me." "It was," answered Shag shortly; "hardly of my own choosing, though; you thrust it upon me. I suppose you were bringing me the bacon, kind Brother?" "I knew you could do it," flattered A'tim. "You have the full speed of a Spike Horn, and the great wisdom of your own age."
A'tim answered nothing as they journeyed down along the steep, heavily wooded river bank, its soft shale sides slid into mighty terraces, but in his heart was a murder thought, as he eyed the great bulk of his Brother Outcast, that he would also eat him.
"E-e-yah!" and quick as a slipping sound that fluttered his ear A'tim was up on the dead cottonwood, only to find himself peering into the lurid eyes of a huge Wolf. Like war stars, four other balls of light gleamed at him from a close crescent. The Outcast was clever. Surely this was a case for diplomacy; he had no desire to feed three hungry Wolves with his thin carcass.
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."
You who are an eater of grasses when you are ill, eat of this Fur Flower, as you name it; then also I will eat in great faith after a little," he added in an undertone. A'tim walked backward a few paces hesitatingly, and, looking wondrous hurt, said in a deprecating voice: "Ghur-r-rh, eu-h-h!
"I cached a piece of the new meat here last night," answered A'tim, as he nosed under an overhanging cut-bank. "Forest thieves!" he ejaculated angrily; "the Gray Stealers of Things have taken it." His cache was as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard not even a bone; there was nothing but the reddened stones where the meat had lain, and a foul odor of Wolf.
Impetuously he rushed to the second cache; it, too, was void of all meat; the third cache held nothing but the footprints of his gray half-brothers, the Wolf Thieves. Despair crept into the heart of A'tim; what use to explore the fourth cache? The meat would be gone of a certainty. Why had he slept so soundly? Why had he hidden the meat at all? Oh! but he was stupid; as silly as a calf Musk Ox.
The grass does not grow because of me, but for me. The Animals all say it is our God, Wie-sah-ke-chack, who sends the eating." "E-u-h-h!" yawned A'tim sulkily, swinging his head in petulant irritation, "I must have meat, no matter where it comes from; I can't starve." There was a covert threat in the Dog-Wolf's voice, but Shag did not notice it his mind was above that sort of thing.
"You may keep close; I will show you that I have spoken no lie." Together, one Wolf on either side of A'tim and one behind, they glided along his back trail till they came to the scene of his caustic farewell to Shag. Suddenly the Pack Leader stopped, buried his nose in a hoof hole and sniffed with discriminating intentness. "If-if-if-fh-h! By my scent, 'tis not Mooswa nor Caribou.
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