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buffalo-hunter's camp.
"You 'n' Brad'll stay here, Barney, while me 'n' Tom are gone," he gave
orders. "And you'll keep a sharp lookout for raiders. If any one shows
up that you're dubious of, plug him and ask questions afterward.
Un'erstand?"
"I hear ye," replied Barney, a small cock-eyed man with a malevolent
grin. "An' we'll do just that, boss."
Long before the traders reached it, the camp of the buffalo-hunters

advertised its presence by the stench of decaying animal matter.
Hundreds of hides were pegged to the ground. Men and women,
squatting on their heels, scraped bits of fat from the drying skins.
Already a train of fifty Red River carts[3] stood ready for the
homeward start, loaded with robes tied down by means of rawhide
strips to stand the jolting across the plains. Not far away other women
were making pemmican of fried buffalo meat and fat, pounded together
and packed with hot grease in skin bags. This food was a staple winter
diet and had too a market value for trade to the Hudson's Bay Company,
which shipped thousands of sacks yearly to its northern posts on the
Peace and the Mackenzie Rivers.
[Footnote 3: The Red River cart was a primitive two-wheeled affair,
made entirely of wood, without nails or metal tires. It was usually
drawn by an ox. (W.M.R.)]
The children and the sound of their laughter gave the camp a domestic
touch. Some of the brown, half-naked youngsters, their skins glistening
in the warm sun, were at work doing odd jobs. Others, too young to
fetch and carry, played with a litter of puppies or with a wolf cub that
had been caught and tamed.
The whole bustling scene was characteristic of time and place. A score
of such outfits, each with its Red River carts and its oxen, its dogs, its
women and children, traveled to the plains each spring to hunt the
bison. They killed thousands upon thousands of them, for it took
several animals to make a sack of pemmican weighing one hundred
fifty pounds. The waste was enormous, since only the choicest cuts of
meat were used.
Already the buffalo were diminishing in numbers. Vast hordes still
roamed the plains. They could be killed by scores and hundreds. But
the end was near. It had been several years since Colonel Dodge
reported that he had halted his party of railroad builders two days to let
a herd of over half a million bison pass. Such a sight was no longer
possible. The pressure of the hunters had divided the game into the
northern and the southern herds. Within four or five years the slaughter
was to be so great that only a few groups of buffalo would be left.

The significance of this extermination lay largely in its application to
the Indians. The plains tribes were fed and clothed and armed and
housed by means of the buffalo. Even the canoes of the lake Indians
were made from buffalo skins. The failure of the supply reduced the
natives from warriors to beggars.
McRae came forward to meet the traders, the sleeves of his shirt rolled
to the elbows of his muscular brown arms. He stroked a great red beard
and nodded gruffly. It was not in his dour honest nature to pretend that
he was glad to see them when he was not.
"Well, I'm here," growled West, interlarding a few oaths as a necessary
corollary of his speech. "What's it all about, McRae? What do you
know about the smashing of our barrels?"
"I'll settle any reasonable damage," the hunter said.
Bully West frowned. He spread his legs deliberately, folded his arms,
and spat tobacco juice upon a clean hide drying in the sun. "Hold yore
hawsses a minute. The damage'll be enough. Don't you worry about
that. But first off, I aim to know who raided our camp. Then I reckon
I'll whop him till he's wore to a frazzle."
Under heavy, grizzled brows McRae looked long at him. Both were
outstanding figures by reason of personality and physique. One was a
constructive force, the other destructive. There was a suggestion of the
gorilla in West's long arms matted with hair, in the muscles of back and
shoulders so gnarled and knotted that they gave him almost a deformed
appearance. Big and broad though he was, the Scot was the smaller.
But power harnessed and controlled expressed itself in every motion of
the body. Moreover, the blue eyes that looked straight and hard out of
the ruddy face told of coordination between mind and matter.
Angus McRae was that rare product, an honest, outspoken man. He
sought to do justice to all with whom he had dealings. Part of West's
demand was fair, he reflected. The trader had a right