flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind
twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call,
the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there
the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull
Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in front beckoned
and smiled a lie of safe passage; the Pound, the death-pit, dug
on its rounded breast, lay hushed in silent ambush, and the Bull
Leader saw only a narrow gate at the far end of the fast-closing
wings. Soon he would lead all this mighty Herd that had grown
into his charge past the walls that were alive with evil spirits,
and out to the prairie beyond.

What could rise up in front and stay that mad rush of half a
thousand Buffalo? Nothing--nothing! and the Pound still lay
hushed--waiting.

Behind the Bull, with implicit faith, pressed the Herd. Only a
short distance reached the dreaded yellow-leafed walls that hid
the Man enemy. In six breaths he would have passed the narrow
mouth, and all his heart's pride would stream out from that death
gauntlet to the broad Range that called to him.

Even now he drew a sigh of relief; one more jump--oh, spirit of
sacred Buffalo! that yawning abyss! the frown of the Pound. He
braced his giant forelegs in the graveled earth on its very
brink. Too late! Behind, two hundred tons of impetuous fright
crashed against his guarding frame; the treacherous sod crumbled;
down, down, thirty feet sheer, over the cliff he shot: two, six,
a dozen, fifty! beyond all count, one after another, bellowing
Cow and screaming Calf, they hurtled into the slaughter-pen of
the Blood Indians' corral.

[Illustration: ONE AFTER ANOTHER THEY HURTLED INTO THE
SLAUGHTER-PEN OF THE BLOOD INDIANS' CORRAL.]

Inferno upon earth was born in an instant; up from the sun smile
of the prairie rose a shadow of fiends. The walls of the pit,
large as the Coliseum, were lined with Redskins of the murder
caste. Bow-strings twanged; dag-spears, long-handled, were driven
with vengeful swish into the bellowing mob of crazed Buffalo. A
sulphurous cloud of gun smoke settled over the pit. Of a verity
it was a carnival of demons. Surely it was a mighty Kill! Surely
it was a blood fresco on the beautiful earth.

Some strong animals, not shattered in their fall, rushed about
the pit in erratic frenzy, like victims in a Roman arena. The
mocking walls rose on every side, grim, unsurmountable, and
thrust the captives back into the shambles; jagge