legged suckling with
your gruff voice, so that what should have been an easy stalk
turned out a long chase for nothing."

"Well, well," responded Shag soothingly, "no doubt you will soon
have food--this can't go on forever, this barrenness of the
woods; I'm sorry for you, for once I had nothing to eat for days
and days. That was ten seasons of the Calf-gathering since--I
remember it well. The White Storm came in the early Cold Time,
and buried the whole Range to the depth of my belly. We Buffalo
did nothing but drift, drift, drift--like locusts, or dust before
the wind. We always go head-on to a storm, for our heads are warm
clothed with much hair, but when it lasts for days and days we
grow weary, and just drift looking for food, for grass. I
remember, at Pot Hole, which is a deep coulee, and has always
been a great shelter to us in such times, on one side was some
grass still bare of the White Storm; but the Buffalo were so many
they ate it as locusts might--quicker than I tell it. As I have
said, Dog-Wolf, I lived for a month off the fat that was in my
loins about the kidneys, for I had never a bite to eat. Then the
fat, aye, even the red meat, commenced to melt from my hump and
my neck, even to my legs, and I grew weak--so weak I could
hardly crawl. Many of us died; first the Cow Mothers, giving up
their lives for the Calves, A'tim; then the old people; we who
were in the middle of life (for I was a Smooth Horn then,
Brother, and Leader of the Herd) lived through this terrible
time.

"It was a great weeding out of the Herd; it was like the sweep of
the fire breath that bares the prairie only to make the grass
come up stronger and sweeter again. Longingly we waited for our
friend, the gentle Chinook, to come up out of the Southwest; but
this time it must have got lost in the mountains, for only the
South wind, which is always cold, or a blizzard breath from the
Northwest blew across the bleak, white-covered Buffalo land.

"One night, just as I thought I must surely die before morning, a
sweet moisture came into my nostrils, and I knew that our Wind
Brother, the Chinook, had found us at last. The sun smiled at us
in the morning and warmed the white cover, and by night we could
see the grass; next day the White Storm was all gone. So, Brother
Outcast, I too, know what it is to be hungry. Have a strong
heart--food will be sent."

"Sent!" snapped A'tim crabbedly; "who will send it? Will my Gray
Half-Brothers, who