.

Henry slid forward, recovered a long dead stick, and rapidly whittled
from it a lot of shavings. He never knew why the buffaloes did not take
alarm at his presence and actions, but he always supposed that the
mystic tie of kinship still endured. Then using his flint and steel with
all the energy and power that imminent danger could inspire, he lighted
first the shavings and then the end of the long stick.

The buffaloes at last began to puff and snort and show alarm, and Henry,
springing to his feet, whirled the torch in a circle of living fire
around his head. The whole herd broke in an instant into a frightful
panic, and with much snorting and bellowing rushed away in a black mass
toward the east. He threw down his torch, and grasping his rifle and
throwing his pack over his shoulder, followed close upon them, so close
that not even the keenest eye in the forest could have distinguished
him from the herd in the great cloud of dust that quickly rose.

It was for this cloud of dust that he had bargained. The soil of the
prairie became dry in the autumn, and the tramplings of four or five
hundred huge beasts churned it into a powder which the wind picked up
and blew into a blinding stream. Henry felt it in his eyes, his nose,
his ears and his mouth, but he was glad and he laughed aloud in his joy.
The rush and bellowings of the buffaloes made it a mighty roar, and the
soul within him was wild and triumphant, as became one who was the very
spirit and essence of the wilderness. He shouted aloud like Long Jim
Hart, knowing that his voice would be lost in the thunder of the herd
and could not reach the Indians.

"On, my gallant beasts!" he cried. "Charge 'em! Break their line! They
can't stand before you! Faster! Faster!"

He struck one of them across the body with the butt of his rifle, but
the herd was already running as fast as it could, while the cloud of
dust was continually rising in greater and thicker volume. In the midst
of this cloud, and hanging almost bodily to the herd itself, Henry was
invisible as he rushed on, shouting his battle song of triumph and
defiance, although no word of it reached the warriors who had lain in
the brushwood and who were now fleeing in fright before the rush of the
mad herd.

Mad it certainly was, said Red Eagle, for the chief himself, with Wyatt
and Blackstaffe, had been directly in its path, and they had been
compelled to run in undignified haste, while the great pillar of d