topping every
minute or so to stare anxiously into the gloom. Buddy stood blinking and
sniffing, his eyes fixed upon the Dutch ovens.

"I'm HUNGRY!" he announced accusingly, gripping the toad that had begun
to squirm at the heat and light. "I kilt a snake an' I'm HUNGRY!"

"Good gorry!" swore Step-and-a-Half, and whipped out his six-shooter and
fired three shots into the air.

Footsteps came scurrying. Buddy's mother swept him into her arms,
laughing with a little whimpering sound of tears in the laughter. Buddy
wriggled protestingly in her arms.

"L'kout! Y' all SKUCSH 'im! I got a HAWN-toe; wight here." He patted his
chest gloatingly. "An' I got a snake. I kilt 'im. An' I'm HUNGRY."

Mother of Buddy though she was, Lassie set him down hurriedly and
surveyed her man-child from a little distance.

"Buddy! Drop that snake instantly'"

Buddy obeyed, but he planted a foot close to his kill and pouted his
lips. "'S my snake. I kilt 'im," He said firmly. He pulled the horned
toad from his waist-front and held it tightly in his two hands. "An's my
hawn-toe. I ketche'd'm. 'Way ova dere," he added, tilting his tow head
toward the darkness behind him.

Bob Birnie rode up at a gallop, pulled up his horse in the edge of the
fire glow and dismounted hastily.

Bob Birnie never needed more than one glance to furnish him the details
of a scene. He saw the very small boy confronting his mother with a dead
snake, a horned toad and a stubborn set to his lips. He saw that the
mother looked rather helpless before the combination--and his brown
mustache hid a smile. He walked up and looked his first-born over.

"Buddy," He demanded sternly, "where have you been?"

"Out dere. Kilt a snake. Ants was trailing a herd. I got a HAWN-toe. An'
I'm hungry!"

"You know better than to leave the wagon, young man. Didn't you know we
had to get out and hunt you, and mother was scared the wolves might eat
you? Didn't you hear us calling you? Why didn't you answer?"

Buddy looked up from under his baby eyebrows at his father, who seemed
very tall and very terrible. But his bare foot touched the dead snake
and he took comfort. "I was comin'," he said. "I WASN'T los'. I bringed
my snake and my hawn-toe. An' dey--WASN'T--any--woluffs!" The last word
came muffled, buried in his mother's skirts.

CHAPTER TWO: THE TRAIL HERD

Day after day the trail herd plodded slowly to the north, following the
buffalo trails that would lead to water, and