became restive; "I think we
must give to him de pack-hoss for to lead, eh!"

"Not a bad notion, Henri. We'll make that the penalty of runnin' off
again; so look out, Master Dick."

"I'm down," replied Dick with a modest air, "obedient as a baby, and
won't run off again--till--the next time. By the way, Joe, how many
days' provisions did ye bring?"

"Two. That's 'nough to carry us to the Great Prairie, which is three
weeks distant from this; our own good rifles must make up the
difference, and keep us when we git there."

"And s'pose we neither find deer nor buffalo," suggested Dick.

"I s'pose we'll have to starve."

"Dat is cumfer'able to tink upon," remarked Henri.

"More comfortable to think o' than to undergo," said Dick, "but I s'pose
there's little chance o' that."

"Well, not much," replied Joe Blunt, patting his horse's neck; "but d'ye
see, lad, ye niver can count for sartin on anythin'. The deer and
buffalo ought to be thick in them plains at this time--and when the
buffalo _are_ thick they covers the plains till ye can hardly see the
end o' them; but, ye see, sometimes the rascally Red-skins takes it into
their heads to burn the prairies, and sometimes ye find the place that
should ha' bin black wi' buffalo, black as a coal wi' fire for miles an'
miles on end. At other times the Red-skins go huntin' in 'ticlar
places, and sweeps them clean o' every hoof that don't git away.
Sometimes, too, the animals seems to take a scunner at a place and keeps
out o' the way. But one way or another men gin'rally manage to scramble
through."

"Look yonder, Joe," exclaimed Dick, pointing to the summit of a distant
ridge, where a small black object was seen moving against the sky,
"that's a deer, ain't it?"

Joe shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed earnestly at the object in
question. "Yer right, boy; and by good luck we've got the wind of him.
Cut in an' take your chance now. There's a long strip o' wood as'll let
ye git close to him."

Before the sentence was well finished, Dick and Crusoe were off at full
gallop. For a few hundred yards they coursed along the bottom of a
hollow; then turning to the right they entered the strip of wood, and in
a few minutes gained the edge of it. Here Dick dismounted.

"You can't help me here, Crusoe. Stay where you are, pup, and hold my
horse."

Crusoe seized the end of the line, which was fastened to the horse's
nose, in his mouth, and lay down on a hillock of