are Wolves, send it--come and lay a dead
Caribou at my feet? Will the Train Dogs, of whose kind I am, come
and feed me with White Fish--the dried Fish their drivers give
them so sparingly?"

"I cannot say, Dog-Wolf; but surely food does not come of one's
own thinking. The grass does not grow because of me, but for me.
The Animals all say it is our God, Wie-sah-ke-chack, who sends
the eating."

"E-u-h-h!" yawned A'tim sulkily, swinging his head in petulant
irritation, "I must have meat, no matter where it comes from; I
can't starve." There was a covert threat in the Dog-Wolf's voice,
but Shag did not notice it--his mind was above that sort of
thing.

In the evening, as they entered a little thicket of dogberry
bushes growing in low land, a small brown shadow flitted across
their path. With a snarl A'tim was after it, crushing through the
long, dry, spike-like grass in hot pursuit. Shag waited.

Back and forth, up and down, in and out, double and twist,
sometimes near and sometimes far, but always with the "Ghur-r-r!"
of the Dog-Wolf's breath coming to Shag's ears, the shadow and
its pursuer chased. Suddenly Shag started as a plaintive squeak
died away in a harsh growl of exultation.

"He has him," muttered Shag; "this will stay the clamor of his
hunger talk, I hope."

The well-blown Dog-Wolf came back carrying a Hare. "Hardly worth
the trouble," he said disdainfully, laying the fluffy figure down
at Shag's feet. "Now I know of a surety why the Flesh Feeders
have fled the Boundaries; it is the Plague Year of Wapoos. This
thing that should be fat, and of tender juiciness, is but a skin
full of bones; there are even the plague lumps in his throat.
There is almost as much poison in this carrion as in a Trapper's
bait; but I must eat of it, for I am wondrous hungry."

"I, also, have eaten bad food in my time," said Shag; "great
pains in the stomach I've had from it. Some seasons the White
Storm would come early in the Cold Time, and cover the grass not
yet fully ripened into seed. It would hold warm because of this,
and grow again, and become green; then the white cover would go,
and the grass would freeze and become sour to the tongue.
Mou-u-ah! but all through the Cold Time I would have great pains.
How far do we go now, A'tim, till we rest in the Northland?"

"Till there is food for both of us."

"Quite true," concurred Shag. "We must go on until you also have
food, my friend."

It was coming up the bank o