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Updated: June 9, 2025
"It's new to me," muttered Shag; "and it will also give cover to one's enemies; one must be very cautious in the Northland, I think." Then the two Outcasts slept together on the border of the North fairyland to which the Dog-Wolf was leading Shag the Bull.
I went back to the cave, and feeling that I must do something lest I should go mad, I drew to me the carcase of the great dog-wolf which I had killed, and, taking my knife of iron, I began to skin it by the light of the moon. For an hour or more I skinned, singing to myself as I worked, and striving to forget him who sat in the cleft above and the howlings which ran about the mountains.
A froth of disappointed rage wreathed the hungry lips of the Dog-Wolf. Surely he was in danger of starvation. For two days he lived on a single Mole, unearthed quite by chance; then a Gopher, stalked from behind the big legs of Shag, saved him from utter collapse. Of a verity he was living from hand to mouth; such abject poverty he had never known, not even in the Southland by the Blood Reserve.
One crunch from his broad forehead, one little push so, and the Dog-Wolf, who was A'tim, would "Spare me, Shag let me go," pleaded the mongrel again; "I brought you to this Herd to this Northland which is good. Were we not Outcast Brothers together?" Again Shag hesitated. Why not? Was he not a Buffalo Bull, a Leader of Herds?
"But the Redmen the hairless-faced ones," interrupted Dog-Wolf; "they killed many a Buffalo in the old days." "We could spare them," replied Shag; "their Deathshafts of wood slew but a few. Like yourself, A'tim, they killed only when they were hungry.
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.
"Thanks, Great Bull," panted the frightened Dog-Wolf, creeping painfully from the thick sedge grass. "He also was after the ducks, I think; I walked right on top of him, I was that busy with my hunt." "If I had not been in such a blundering hurry," lamented Shag, "I might have saved him for your eating; but he's gone now." And so they journeyed till they came to Battle River.
There was, the old woman informed him, half a bottle of brandy left in the sideboard by the dog-wolf. "Prepare a toddy as I told you," said Doctor James. "Wake your mistress; have her drink it, and tell her what has happened." Some ten minutes afterward, Mrs. Chandler entered, supported by old Cindy's arm. She appeared to be a little stronger since her sleep and the stimulant she had taken.
Suddenly the trail kinked sharply to the right, and the Dog-Wolf, swift-rushing, overshot it. "E-u-h! at fault," he muttered. "Some trick of the fool Cow's." Back and forth, back and forth like Setters the four Killers scurried. "H-o-o-oh! here away!" cried A'tim, picking it up; and on again galloped the Gray Hunters.
"Most surely. All the Dwellers in the Northland know that. Are not all the Forest-Dwellers full-haired?" "And this Fur Flower, A'tim; where is it?" "Less than a day's trail," answered the Dog-Wolf. "Find it for me, kind Brother," begged the Bull. "When one frightens those of his own kind it is time to try something."
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