blankets, grub consisting of Hudson's
Bay biscuits, pork, tea and sugar, a camp outfit comprising a pan,
a tea-pail, and two cups.

"So long, Mackenzie," said French, as they rode away. "Hold down
the ranch till we get back. We'll strike out north from here, then
swing round across the Night Hawk toward the hills and back by the
Eagle and Wakota, and come up the creek."

To hunt up a stray beast on the wide open prairie seems to the
uninitiated a hopeless business, but it is a simple matter, after
all. One has to know the favourite feeding-grounds, the trails
that run to these grounds, and have an idea of the limits within
which cattle and horses will range. As a rule, each band has its
own feeding-grounds and its own spots for taking shelter. The
difficulties of search are enormously increased by the broken
character of a rolling bluffy prairie. The bluffs intercept the
view, and the rolls on the prairie can hide successfully a large
bunch of cattle or horses, and it may take a week to beat up a
country thickly strewn with bluffs, and diversified with coulees
that might easily be searched in a single afternoon.

The close of the third day found the travellers on Wakota trail.

"We'll camp right here, Kalman," said French, as they reached a
level tongue of open prairie, around three sides of which flowed
the Eagle River.

Of all their camps during the three days' search none was so
beautiful, and none lived so long in Kalman's memory, as the camp
by the Eagle River near Wakota. The firm green sward, cropped short
by a succession of campers' horses,--for this was a choice spot for
travellers,--the flowing river with its soft gurgling undertone,
the upstanding walls of the poplar bluffs in all the fresh and
ample beauty of the early summer drapery, the over-arching sky,
deep and blue, through which peeped the shy stars, and the air,
so sweet and kindly, breathing about them. It was all so clean,
so fresh, so unspoiled to the boy that it seemed as if he had
dropped into a new world, remote from and unrelated to any other
world he had hitherto known.

They picketed their horses, and with supper over, they sat down
before their fire, for the evening air was chill, in weary, dreamy
delight. They spoke few words. Like all men who have lived close
to Nature, whether in woods or in plains, French had developed a
habit of silence, and this habit, as all others, Kalman was rapidly
taking on.

As they reclined thus drea