"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 tr