ed
out from under their heads. They leapt to their feet. In the bright
moonlight they saw the horses madly galloping off, with the saddles
bounding and trailing behind them. Their first thought was that the
horses had been stampeded by horse-thieves, and they threw themselves
on the ground, crouching in the long grass with rifles ready.

There was no stir. At last, in the hollow they made out a shadowy,
four-footed shape. It was a wolf who strode noiselessly to the low
crest and disappeared.

They rose and went after the horses, taking the broad trail made by
the saddles through the dewy grass.

Once Joe Ferris stopped. "Say, I ain't ever committed any crime
deservin' that anything like this should happen!" he exclaimed
plaintively. Then, turning straight to Roosevelt, evidently suspecting
that he had a Jonah on his hands, he cried, in a voice in which wrath
was mingled with comic despair, "Have you ever done anything to
deserve this?"

"Joe," Roosevelt answered solemnly, "I never have."

"Then I can't understand," Joe remarked, "why we're runnin' in such
luck."

Roosevelt grinned at him and chuckled, and Joe Ferris grinned and
chuckled; and after that the savage attentions of an unkind fate did
not seem so bad.

They found the horses sooner than they expected and led them back to
camp. Utterly weary, they wrapped themselves in their blankets once
more and went to sleep. But rest was not for them that night. At three
in the morning a thin rain began to fall, and they awoke to find
themselves lying in four inches of water. Joe Ferris expected
lamentations. What he heard was, "By Godfrey, but this is fun!"

They cowered and shivered under their blankets until dawn. Then,
soaked to the skin, they made breakfast of Lang's adamantine biscuits,
mounted their horses, and were off, glad to bid good-bye to the
inhospitable pool.

A fine, drizzling mist, punctuated at intervals by heavy downpours of
rain, shrouded the desolate region and gathered them into a chilly
desolation of its own. They traveled by compass. It was only after
hours that the mist lifted, revealing the world about them, and, in
the center of it, several black objects slowly crossing a piece of
rolling country ahead. They were buffalo.

They picketed the horses, and crept forward on their hands and knees
through the soft, muddy prairie soil. A shower of cold rain blew
up-wind straight in their faces and made the teeth chatter behind
their blue li