great long drove that there was no counting, but
when you rode nearer to see, you found that what you took for one big
drove was only made up of hundreds of other droves--big families like of
fathers, and mothers, and children, which always kept themselves to
themselves and didn't mix with the others. Then all along outside the
flanks of the great drove of droves you'd see the wolves hanging about,
half-starved, fierce-looking vermin, licking their bare chops, and
waiting their chance to get something to eat."

"But wolves wouldn't attack the great bison, would they?" asked Bart.

"Only when they're about helpless--wounded or old, you know, then they
will. What they wolves is waiting for is for the young calves--little,
helpless sort of things that are always being left behind as the great
drove goes feeding on over the plains; and if you watch a drove, you'll
every now and then find a calf lying down, and its mother trying to coax
it to get up and follow the others, while the old cow keeps mooing and
making no end of a noise, and cocking up her tail, and making little
sets of charges at the wolves to drive them back whenever they get too
near. Ah, it's a rum sight to see the lank, fierce, hungry beasts
licking their chops, and thinking every now and then that they've got
the calf, for the old mother keeps going off a little way to try and
make the stupid cow baby get up and follow. Then the wolves make a
rush, and so does the buffalo, and away go the hungry beggars, for a
wolf is about as cowardly a thing as ever run on four legs, that he is."

"I should like to see a sight like that, Joses," said Bart; "how I would
shoot at the wolves!"

"What for?" said Joses.

"What for? Why, because they must be such cowardly, cruel beasts, to
try and kill the calves."

"So are we cowardly, cruel beasts, then," said Joses, philosophically.
"Wolves want to live same as humans, and it's all their nature. If they
didn't kill and keep down the buffler, the country would be all buffler,
and there wouldn't be room for a man to walk. It's all right, I tell
you; wolves kills buffler for food, and so do we. Why, you never
thought, praps, how bufflers fill up the country in some parts. I've
seen droves of 'em miles upon miles long, and if it wasn't for the
wolves and the Injun, as I said afore, there wouldn't be room for
anything else."

"Are there so many as you say, Joses?" asked Bart.

"Not now, my lad. There used to be