snap!' the quick-breathing Fire-stick coughed; and
though I rocked, and jumped sideways and twisted, before I could
get away I had one of the breath-stings in my shoulder. E-u-h-h!
but I go lame from it still."

Shag slipped a cud of sweet grass up his throat with a gurgling
cough and chewed it reflectively, for he was of a slow turn of
thought, not at all like the nimble-brained Dog-Wolf. Then he
swallowed the cud, blew from his nostrils the sand that had come
into them crossing the scant-garbed hills of Belly Buttes, and
said ponderously: "Yes, I know the many-breathed Fire-stick;
that's what makes the Palefaces so terrible. The plain simply
reeks with the dead bodies of my people whom they have slain."

"And the bodies all poisoned, too; whur-r, whur-r! All turned
into death meat for the Flesh-feeders, Dog or Wolf," snarled
A'tim. "Killed for the hide--think of that, Shag!--or just the
tongue taken. If we make a kill it is for the eating--to still
the gnawing pain that comes to us, and we waste nothing, leave
nothing."

"Most assuredly," replied the Bull, "thou leavest nothing but the
bones."

"Nothing but the bones," concurred A'tim. "And as I was saying,
these Long Knives put the Flour of Death in the dead Buffalo, and
my Wolf Brethren, when they eat, being forced to of their hunger,
die like flies at Cold Time."

"And a good thing, too--I mean--" and Shag coughed
apologetically; "I mean, as a Calf I received cause to remember
your Wolf Brothers, A'tim; there's a hollow in my thigh you could
bury your paw in, where one of your long-fanged Pack sought to
hamstring me. You, A'tim, who are half Wolf, know how it comes
that where one of your kind puts his teeth, the flesh, sooner or
later, melts away, and leaves but a hole--how is it, A'tim?"

"Foul teeth," growled the Dog-Wolf. "They're a mean lot, are the
Gray Runners; even I, who am half of their kind, bear them no
love--have they not outcasted me because of my Dog blood? I am no
Wolf, Shag; I am A'tim, which meaneth 'a Dog,' in the talk of the
Crees."

"Even so, Brother," said Shag, "how comes it that thou art a
half-breed Wolf at all?"

[Illustration: "I AM NO WOLF, SHAG; I AM A'TIM, WHICH MEANETH A
DOG IN THE TALK OF THE CREES."]

"That is also of Man's evil ways, Brother Bull--thinking to
change everything that was as it should be before he came. This
false mating is of his thought; to get the strength of the Wolf,
and the long-fasting of the Wol