The Outcasts | Page 9

his paw touched something soft and yielding--it was flesh. How had it escaped the Gray Stealers?
"See, Shag," he said, bringing his joint close to the Bull, and laying it down lovingly, "last night I laid in a grub stake, as my old Master would say, that would have landed me in fair condition in the Northland. Those accursed Wolves, of whose kind I am not, being a Dog, have stolen it--all but this piece. It was out of consideration for you, my friend, knowing your dread of the blood smell, that made me cache it a little apart. How I wish I had lain on it--made my bed on its soft, sweet sides. Such meat I have not eaten for many a day."
"I'm sorry," lamented Shag; "it's too bad. Here is nothing but sorrow for every one. See how still and quiet the old Range is; only those slayers of Redmen up by the Pound. Years ago, A'tim, perhaps when you were a Pup, all this prairie that is so beautiful with its short Buffalo grass, was just covered with people of my kind; and Antelope--though they were not of our kind, still we liked to see them--there was no harm in them, being, like ourselves, Grass Feeders; and to the South-West, Dog-Wolf----"
"I am no Wolf," interrupted A'tim, thinking of his stolen meat; "I am a Dog!"
"Well, well, Dog, to the South-West--from here we can even see Chief Mountain where is that land--there were beautiful big-horned Elk, also Grass Feeders, and of a sweet temper."
"I know," ejaculated A'tim, licking at his flesh food; "in the North it was just the same with the Caribou, the whole land alive with them--and Mooswa, too."
"But now, A'tim, since the coming of the Palefaces we are slaughtered by them and by the Redmen. L-o-u-g-h--h-o-o! I shall leave this old Range to-day forever; my heart is sad."
"Come with me, then, Brother," cried A'tim; "together we will go to the land of which I have spoken. It is a long, lone trail for one. I will guard you well, for I know Man's ways; and at night we will rest side by side."
"I will go," said the Bull simply.
"Let us start," cried A'tim, seizing his joint of Buffalo meat, and sweeping the horizon with suspicious eyes.
"Your eating is heavy," said Shag; "I will carry it for you on my horns. L-o-u-g-h--h-u! the blood smells terrible!" he exclaimed as A'tim pulled the buffalo flesh over Shag's forehead.
Then the two Outcasts took up the long trail toward the Northland, where in a woof of sage green and bracken gold was woven a scheme of flesh-colored Castillejia, and wine-tinted moose-weed, and purple pea-flower; where was the golden shimmer of Gaillardia and slender star-leafed sunflower; the pencil stalk of blue-joint, and the tasseled top of luscious pony-grass: a veritable promised land for the old Bull, buffeted of his fellows, and finding the short grass of the Southland stubbornly hard against his worn teeth.
There, too, was Wapoos, the Hare so easily caught in the years of plenty, and A'tim need never feel the pangs of a collapsing stomach. There also were Marten, and Grouse, and Pheasant, and Kit Beaver, and other animals sweet against the tongue. Surely the Dog-Wolf had lingered too long in that barren Southern country, where there was only the rat-faced Gopher, who was but a mouthful; with, perhaps, the chance of a Buffalo Calf caught away from the Herd. Even that chance was gone now, for man was killing them all off. Yes, it was well that they should trail to the Northland, each said to the other.
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?"
"This hollow trail leads to water, most assuredly," answered Shag, stepping leisurely into a path that was like an old plow furrow in a hay meadow. "Even this shows how many were my people once." The Buffalo sighed. "Within sight are more trails like this than you have toes to your feet, Dog-Wolf--this whole mighty Range from here to the Uplands, which is the home of the White Storm, is so marked with the trails of my people; and now there are only these Water Runs to remind us of them."
Soon they came to a little lake blue with the mirrored sky, its mud banks white as though with driven snow. "The bitter water mark," said Shag, as his heavy hoof sank through the white crust on the dark mud.
"I know," answered A'tim--"alkali, that's what Man calls