form came majestically from a cleft in the buttes, and
stood outlined, a towering black mass. A'tim flattened to earth
as though he had been shot, looking not more than a tuft of
withered bunch-grass. Then he arose as suddenly, chuckled to
himself, and growled nervously: "Oh! but I got a start--it's only
old Shag, the Outcast Bull. Ha, ha! A'tim to fear a Buffalo!
Good-evening, Brother," he exclaimed; "you quite frightened me--I
thought it was that debased Long Knife, Camous."

"Thought me Camous!" bellowed the Bull, snorting indignantly;
"he's but a slayer and a thief. All the Paleface Long Knives are
that; killing, killing--stealing, stealing. Why, even among his
own kind he is called 'Camous'; and you, who were bred in the Man
camps, know what that means."

"Of course, of course--ha! most surely it means 'a stealer of
things.' But I meant not to liken you to him, Brother Shag--it
was only my fright; for even in my dreams I am always seeing the
terrible Camous. I have cause to remember him, Shag--it was this
way. Did I ever tell you?"

"Never," answered Shag, heavily.

[Illustration: "LYING ON MY BACK AS THOUGH I WERE DEAD, I HELD MY
TAIL STRAIGHT UP."]

"Well, it was this way: Once upon a time, in the low hills they
call Cypress, I was stalking a herd of antelope. To tell you the
truth, I had been at it for two days. Waugh! but they were wary.
At last I worked within fair eyesight of them, and knowing the
stupid desire they have to look close at anything that may be
strange to them, I took to myself a clever plan. Lying on my back
as though I were dead, I held my tail straight up, and let the
wind blow it back and forth. The big-eyed Eaters-of-Grass asked
one another: 'What is this new thing? Is it a plant or an animal?'
That is the way they talked, I am sure, for they are like
wolf-pups, quite silly. Well, they came closer and closer and
closer. E-u-h-h, e-u-h-h! but my mouth watered with the thought
of their sweet meat as I lay as one dead. Now, they hadn't the
knowledge to work up wind to me, but came straight for the thing
they saw that moved. Would you believe it, just as I was
measuring from the corner of my eye the time for a strong rush,
who should creep over a hill but Camous! In fright I sprang to my
feet, and away went the Goat-faced small-prongs. Then the
deviltry of the many-breathed Fire-stick this Camous carries came
down upon me as I ran faster than I'd ever gone before. 'Click,
snap! click,