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THE OUTCASTS

SHAG CARRIED THE DOG-WOLF ON HIS BACK.

THE

UTCASTS

By ^' A. FRASElt^

n AKTHUK HEMIM6

W i i i i iii | i i iiii > iii « ^ i

SHAG CAARUP THJB BOGHWC&F ON HIS BACK.

THE

OUT CASTS

Bt W. a. FRASERr

IixoiTtAno n ARTHUR HEMING

WILLIAM BRIGGS

TORONTO .... MocCCCI

/' -(

>S8996

BBttnd Meoi«ii« to Aot oC the PuliMBMt«l OuMdi^ i> tt
iMhaBdndaBdaMibgrl^uuii BWMi,i*^
i of A(fioBltaft> OtUw*.

Illustrations

Tbi futt-fagt tuhjtcti fnm drawings ky Arthur

Hming. The bead- and tail-fttcts frtm

drawings by J. S. G^rdtn

Shag carried the Dog-wolfonhif back . Tide

« Lying on my back as though I were dead, I
held my tail straight up" ... 6

«I am no Wolf, Shagj I am A'tim, which
meaneth a Dog in the talk of the Ciecs '* lo

One after another they hurtled into the
slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians' corral 36

Muskwa had A'tim in his long-clawed giasp 66

"Steady, Dog-Wolf, steady," admonished
Shag, «( this is a friend of mine" . . ^g

Illustrationt

<(Oh, don't mention it I*' exclaimed the WoIf{
**no doubt we shall find something for
dinner, presently" . . • i>4

**Thou art a traitor, and a great liar," said
the Bull 136

A 'TIM the Outcast was half Wolf,
^^^ half Huskie Dog. That meant
ferocity and bloodthirst on the
one side, and knowledge of Man's ways
on the other. Also, that he was an
Outcast ; for neither side of the house of
his ancestry would have aught of him.

A'tim was bred in the far Northland,
where the Cree Indians trail the white
snow-waste with Train Dogs ; and one
time A'tim had pressed an unwilling
shoulder to a dog-collar. Now he was
an outcast vagabond on the southern
prairie, close to the Montana border-
land.

The Outcasts

It wu September; and til day A'tim
had ikulked in the willow cover of Belly
River flat-kndt, close to the lodges of
the Blood Indians.

Nothing to eat had come the way of
the Dog-Wolf; only a little knowledge
of something that was to happen, for he
had heard things, — the voices of the
Indians sitting in council had slipped
gently down the wind to his sharp Wolf
cars.

As he crawled up the river bank close
to Belly Buttes anif looked across the
plain, he could see the pink flush of
eventide, like a fiury veil, draping the
cold blue mountains — the Rockies.

«« Good-night, warm Brother," he
said, blinking at the setting sun; "I
wonder if you are going to sleep with
an empty stomach, as must A'tim."

The soft-edged shafts of gold-yellow

The Outcasts

quivered tremblingly behind the blue-
grty mountains, at though Sol were
laughing at the address of the Outcast.
The Dog- Wolf looked furtively over
his shoulder at the smoke-wreathed
cones of the Blood tepees. The odor
of many flesh-pots tickled his nostrils
until they quivered in longing desire.
Buh-h-h ! but he was hungry ! All his
life he had been hungry ; only at long
intervals had a gorge of much eating
fallen to his lot.

«< Good-night, warm Brother," he
said again, turning stubbornly from the
scent of flesh, and eying the crimson
flush where the sun had set ; "one more
round of your trail .nd I shall sleep with
a full stomach, for to-morrow the Bloods
make a big Kill — the Run of many
Bufialo."

A'tim, sitting on his haunches, and

The Outcasts

holding his nose high in air until his
throat pipe drew straight and taut, sang :
"O-0-o.o-o-h! for the blood drinking!
W-a-u-g-ha! the sweet new meat —
hot to the mouth ! "

The Indian Dogs caught up the cry
of A'tim as it floated over the Belly
River and voiced it from a thousand
throats.

«*The ilackfeet!" screamed Eagle
Shoe, rushing from his tepee. "It 's
only a hungry Wolf," he grunted, as he
sat in the council again; "let us talk of
the Bufialo Run."

That was what the Dog- Wolf had
heard lying in the tangle of gray willow,
close to the tepee of Eagle Shoe, the
Blood Indian; and he would sleep
peacefrdly, his hunger stayed by the
morrow's prospect. As he sat yawning
toward the rose sky in the West, a

The Outcasts

huge, dark form came majestically from
a deft in the buttes, and stood out-
lined, a towering black mass. A'tim
flattened to earth as though he had been
shot, looking not more than a tuft of
withered bunch-grass. Then he arose
as suddenly, chuckled to himself, and
growled nervously : " Oh ! but I got a
start — it *s only old Shag, the Outcast
Bull. Ha, ha! A'tim to fear a Bufl^o!
Good-evening, Brother," he exclaimed ;
«*you quite frightened me — I thought it
was that debased Long Knife, Camous."
"Thought me Camous!" bellowed
the Bull, snorting indignantly; "he's
but a slayer and a thie£ All the Pale-
face Long Knives are that; killing, kill-
ing — stealing, stealing. Why, even
among his own kind he is called < Cam-
ous*; and you, who were bred in the
Man camps, know what that means.'

The Outcasts

"Of course, of course— ha! most
surely it means 'a stealer of things/
But I meant not to liken you to him.
Brother Shag— it was only my fright]
for even in my dreams I am always see-'
ing the terrible Camous. I have cause
to remember him, Shag— it wjis this
way. Did I ever tell you ?"

" Never;* answered Shag, heavily.
** Well, it was this way : Once upon
a time, in the low hills they call Cypress,
I was stalking a herd of antelope. To
tell you the truth, I had been at it for
two days. Waugh ! but they were wary.
At last I worked within fair eyesight of
them, and knowing the stupid desire
they have to look close at anything that
may be strange to them, I took to my-
self a clever plan. Lying on my back
as though I were dead, I held my tail
straight up, and let the wind blow it

" LYING ON MY BACK AS THOUGH I WERE DEAD, I HELD MY TAIL

STRAIGHT UP.

The Outcasts

back and forth. The big-eyed Eaters-
of-Gras8 asked one another: 'What is
this new thing ? Is it a plant or an ani-
mal ? ' That is the way they talked, I
am sure, for they are like wolf-pups,
quite silly. Well, they came closer juid
doser and closer. E-u-h-h, e-u-h-h!
but my mouth watered with the thought
of their sweet meat as I lay as one dead.
Now, they had n't the knowledge to
work up wind to me, but came straight
for the thing they saw that moved.
Would you believe it, just as I was
measuring fi*om the corner of my eye
the time for a strong rush, who should
creep over a hill but Camous ! In fright
I sprang to my feet, and away went the
Goat-faced small-prongs. Then the
deviltry of the many-breathed Fire-stick
this Camous carries came down upon
me as I ran lister than I *d ever gone

The Outcasts

thequick-breathing Fire-stick coughed-
-a though I rocked, and jumped di

away I had one of the breath-sting,^

my shoulder. E-u-h-h! but I gohme
from it still." * ™'

Shag slipped a cua of sweet grass up

chewed « reflectively, for he wl of a

nrJT°^'^''«''''°°'«»J'«kethe
n.mble-b«»ed Dog-Wolf. Then he

^ the ^d that had come into them
«°««g the scant-garbed hills of Belly
Buttes. and said ponderously: "Yes r
know the many-breathed Fire^ticif

H«l K J^^' ^T '^'"P'y ^'*'" '^A the

The Outcasts

*<And the bodies al] poisoned, too;
whur-r, whur-r ! All turned into death
meat for the Flesh-feeders, Dog or
Wolf," snarled A'tim. " Killed for the
hide — think of that. Shag ! — or just the
tongue taken. If we make a kill it is
for the eating — to still the gnawing
pain that comes to us, and we waste
nothing, leave nothing."

*<Most assuredly," replied the Bull,
*<thou leavest nothing but the bones."

** Nothing but the bones," concurred
A'tim. *<And as I was saying, these
Long Knives put the Flour of Death in
the dead Bufiklo, and my Wolf Breth-
ren, when they eat, being forced to of
their hunger, die like flies at Cold
Time."

"And a good thing, too — I mean
— " and Shag coughed apologetically;
*' I mean, as a Calf I received cause to

The O utcasts

remember your Wolf Brothers, A'tim ;
there 's a hollow in my thigh you could
bury your paw in, where one of your
long-fanged Pack sought to hamstring
me. You, A*tim, who are half Wolf,
know how it comes that where one of
your kind puts his teeth, the flesh,
sooner or later, melts away, and leave?
but a hple— how is it, A'tim?"

"Foul teeth," growled the Dog-
Wolf. ««They 're a mean lot, are the
Gray Runners ; even I, who am half of
their kind, bear them no love— have
they not outcasted me because of my
Dog blood? I am no Wolf, Shag; I
am A'tim, which meaneth *a Dog,** in
the talk of the Crees."

"Ever -o. Brother," said Shag, "how
comes u ^at thou art a half-breed Wolf
at all?"

"That is also of Man's evil ways,

I II

■ I AM NO WOLF, SHAG; I AW a'TIM, WHICH MEANETH A DOG IN

THE TALK OF THE CREES.'

The Outcasts

Brother Bull — thinking to change every-
thing that was as it should be before
he came. This false mating is of his
thought; to get the strength of the
Wolf, and the long-fasting of the Wolf,
and the toughness of the Wolf, into the
kind of his Train-Dogs. And because
of all this, I, who am a Dog, am out-
casted."

"Well, we '11 soon all be gone,"
sighed the Bull, laintively; "when I
was a Smooth Horn, and in the full
glory of my strength — "

"Thou must have been of a great
strength, Shag, for thou art the biggest
Bull from Belly Buttcs to Old Man
River— Waugh! Waugh ! that I can
swear to."

"In those days," continued Shag,
taking a swinging lick at his scraggy
hide with his rough tongue, "in those

•),

The Outcasts

days, when I was a Smooth Horn, I led
a Herd that caused the sweet-grass plain
to tremble like water when we galloped
over it. We were as locusts — that
many ; and when crossing a coulee I 've
turned with pride on the opposite bank
— I always went first — and, looking
back, saw the whole hollow just a wav-
ing mass of life. Such life, too, Lone
Dog; silk-coated Cows with Calf at
knee ; and Bulls there were full many
— because I tolerated them, of course
— and all strong and fat, and troubled
by nothing but, perchance, in the Cold
Time a few days of the White Storm
which covered our food. But that did
not matter much ; we just drifted head
on to the harsh-edged blizzard, and lived
on the thick fat of our kidneys."

«But the Redmen — the hairless-
faced ones," interrupted Dog- Wolf;

The Outcasts

- they killed many a Buffalo in the old
days."

*<We could spare them," replied
Shag; "their Deathshafts of wood slew
but a few. Like yourself, A'tim, they
killed only when they were hungry.
It 's the many-breathed Fire-stick of the
Pale£ice that has destroyed us, A'tim;
but like you. Brother, I, who am but an
Outcast because of my great age, and be-
cause my horns have become stubs, care
not overmuch. Why should I lament
over my own people who have driven me
forth — made of me an Outcast?"

*< There is to be a big Run to-mor-
row — a mighty Kill," said A'tim,
growing tired of the old Bull's remi-
niscent wail.

"Where?" queried the other.

" At Stone Hill Corral. Eagle Shoe
says they will kill five hundred head."

The Outcasts

"I know," sighed Shag— "at the
Pound; I know that death-trap. Half
a Herd I lost there once through the
conceit of a young Bull hardly out of
the Spike Horn age. Well I know
the Pound —even the old Indian of
deep cunning who made it, Chief
Poundmaker — that *s how he came by
his name; A*tim. But, as I was saying,
when I tried to turn the Herd, knowing
what was meant, this Calf Bull led a
part of them straight into the very trap.
Served him right, too; but the Cows!
Ah, me I My poor people! Slaugh-
tered, every one of them ; and so it will
be again to-morrow — eh, A'tim ? It *s
the big Herd down in the good feeding
they *re after, I suppose.'*

"Yes," answered A*tim; "to-mor-
row the whole Blood tribe, and Camous
the Paleface, who is but a squaw man,

The Outcasts

living in their lodges, will make the
Run."

« I wish I could stampede the BufHilo
to save them/* sighed Shag; "but my
sides are sore from the insulting prods
of the Spike Horns. Not a Bull in
the whole Herd, from Smooth Horns,
who are wise, down to Spike Horns,
who are fools because of their youth,
but thinks it fair sport to drive at me if
I go near. Surely I am an Outcast —
which seems to me a strange thing.
When we come to the knowledge age,
having gained wisdom, we are driven
forth."

"No; you *d only get into trouble,"
declared A*tim decisively. " We, who
are Brothers because of our condition,
will watch this Run from afar. To-
morrow, for once in my life, I shall have
a full stomach."

The Outcasts

"I am going back to the Buttes to
sleep," declared Shag.

"I will go also," said A'tim; ««wh'le
you rest, I, who sleep with one eye
open, after the manner of my Wolf
Brothers, will watch."

In a little valley driven into the
Buttes' side, where the grass grew long
because of deep snow in winter time,
the big Buffalo stopped, prospected the
ground with his nose, flipped a sharp
stone from the couch with nimble lip,
and knelt down gingerly, for rheuma-
tism had crept into his old bones ; then
with a tired grunt of relaxation he rolled
on his side, and blew a great breath of
sweet content through his nostrils.

"A good bed," quoth A*tim. "I
will share it with you. Brother; close
against your stomach for warmth."
He took the three turns that had

The Outcasts

come to him of his Dog heritage, and
curled up contentedly against the great
paunch of the scarred Bull.

"I can't sleep for thinking of the
big Kill/* murmured Shag. " My poor
Brothers and Sisters, also some of my
own children, are in that Herd, though
they, too, have disowned and driven me
forth."

•* There will be more sweet grass for
your feeding when they are gone. Shag,**
declared Dog- Wolf.

" Ah, there *s plenty of eating, such
as it is; though the grass on the prairie
looks short and dry and harsh, yet it is
sweet in the cud. To you, who are but
a Dog- Wolf, the eating comes first in
your thought, but with us it is the dread
of hunters, who keep us ever on the
move.**

"I know of a land where it is not
this way,*' asserted A'tim, after a pause;

»7

The Outcasts

"a beautiful land, with pea-vine knee-
deep, and grass the Men call blue-joint,
that fair tops my back when I walk
thiough it. As for drink! why, one
day in a single tramp I crossed sixteen
streams of beautiful running water."

"Are you dreaming, A'tim?" asked
Shag, touching the Dog- Wolf 's back
with the bartered point of his stub-horn.
" No, Bull ; and there are few hunters
m that land, and few of your kind; and
shelter of forest against the White Storm ;
and buttes and coulees everywhere.'*

"An ideal Range," muttered the
Bull; "is it far?"

"Perhaps half a moon— perhaps a
whole moon from here to there, just as
one's feet stand the trail."

"You make me long for that great
feeding," sighed Shag enviously.

"Yes, you 'd be better in the North-
land, Shag," said the Dog-Wolf, sleepily

The Outcasts

you are an

*»

— "better there. Here
Outcast, even as I am."

"Yes, after the big Kill to-morrow,
sighed the Bull mournfully, "I shall
want to trail somewhere. Across Koo-
tenay River is good feeding-ground, but
there the accursed Long Knives are filled
with the very devil of destruction, and
kill even such as I am, though my hide
is not worth the lifting. I, who am
an Outcast, and have lost all pride, know
this — I am worthless.'*

The bubbling monotone of the old
Bull had put A*tim to sleep. He was
giving vent to gasping snores and plain-
tive whimpers, and his legs were twitch-
ing spasmodically; he was dreaming of
the chase. Shag turned his massive
head and watched the nervous Dog-
Wolf with heavy, tired eyes. "He is
chasing the reed-legged Antelope now;
or, perhaps, even in his sleep, Camous

»9

The Outcasts

pursues him with the many-breathed
Fire-stick. Well, well, by my hump,
but we all have our troubles; even this
Dog- Wolf, who is not half my age, has
lived into the hard winter of life."

Then Shag rested his black-whiskered
chin on the soft turf, his tired eyelids,
mange-shaved, drooped over the age-
blurred eye^ and these two Outcasts, so
strangely mated, driven together by ad-
versity, slept in the coulee of Belly
Buttes.

A COLD, weakling gray-light was
a\ touching with ghastly fresco
the Belly Buttes when A*tim
stretched out his paw and scratched im-
patiently at Shag's leather side. The
Bull came back slowly out of his heavy

sleep.

"Gently, Wolf Brother," he cried
petulantly; "your claws are wondrous
strong, and my side has many sore spots
love scars from my Brother Bulls."

'•You *11 have worse than Bull scars
if you don't wake up," answered A* tim ;
"can't you hear something?"

Shag tipped his massive head sideways

The Outcasts

with drowsy inquiry, the heavy lids
opening in unwilling laz icss. A muf-
fled, palpitating beat was in the sulky
morning air; it was like the monotonous
thump of a war drum over on the Re-
serve.

"What is it?'* queried the Bull, rais-
ing his head with full-aged dignity.

** Eagle Shoe's pinto is pounding the
trail; the Run is on," answered A*tim.

Shag heaved his huge body to his
knees wearily, struggled to his feet with
stifF-limbed action, and shook his gaunt
sides.

"You need n*t do that," sneered
A*tim; "not much grass sticks to your
coat now.**

" No, it *s only force of habit," grunted
Shag. " And to think of the time when
my beautiful hair was the envy of the
whole range; for I was a Silk-Coat, you

Tho Outcasts

know — a rare thing in Bulls, to be sure.
But I 'm not that now; when I look in
the lake waters and see only this miser-
able ruff about my neck, and scant tuft
on my tail, I feel sad— feel apjiamed.
The tongue of the lake tells me isill that.
Brother, so say no more about it."

"Wait you here. Shag," commanded
A'tim; "I will go up on a Butte and
see the method of these hunters; my
eyes are younger than yours. Herd

Leader."

When the Dog-Wolf returned he
said: "Eagle Shoe is riding far to the
South; let us follow in the river flat and
see this Run, for it will be a mighty
Kill. O-o-o-h! but I am empty —
famished ! "

"Always of blood," muttered the Bull
to himself — "always of blood and meat
eating; Wolf and Dog; Dog-Wolf and

The Outcasts

Man — always full of the blood thought
and the desire for a KUl."

They could hear the thud of pony
hoofs on the dry prairie's hollow drum
as they traveled, winding in and out
the tangle of willow bushes that fol-
lowed the river. Then the hoof beats
died away, and A'tim said: «Now he
has circled to the West — th?.f means
something; let us go up and see."

They stole up the old river bank to
the brow of the uplands. A mile off
they could see Eagle Shoe standing be-
side his cayuse. As they watched, the
Blood Indian stooped, caught up a hand-
ful of black earth-dust and threw it high
in air. That was sign talk, and told
his comrades who were hiding on the
prairie that he saw many Bufialo —
Buf^o many as the grains of sand cast
to the wind.

The Outcasts

Then he trailed his blanket behind
him as he walked beside his ewe-necked
pinto, and two Indians stole stealthily
from their prairie cover like Coyotes,
and followed Eagle Shoe.

*«Ah!** muttered Shag, as he and
A'tim went forward slowly, "I know.
This Indian has the cunning of a whole
Wolf-Pack; is that not so. Brother?
King Animals ! " he exclaimed, in a great
voice like the low of the wind coming
through a mountain gorge; "is that
not the Herd yonder, clear-eyed Dog-
Wolf?"

"By the chance of meat, it is — a
mighty Herd, Shag; such a Herd as the
Caribou make in the Northland when
they mate."

"Now the Buffalo see Eagle Shoe,"
continued Shag; "but they have no wis-
dom; they but see some one thing that

The Outcasts

has life. Perhaps they will even say:
* It is only old Shag, the Outcast; let ui
feed in peace.* Their eyes are the eyes
of Calves, and their noses tell them no-
thing, for the hunt Man is down Wind,
is he not, A'tim?"

"Surely, Brother; even a moneas, a
green hunter of a Paleface, would know
better than to send the flavor of his
presence on the Wind's back."

" Yes, even so," continued Shag. « See
how gently he moves toward them. Dan-
ger ! One Bull's head is up ; he has dis-
coverer? chat it is not a Bufl=alo; now
he has whispered to the others, for they
are moving slowly. Thou hast spoken
truth, A'tim — a strange thingfor a Dog-
Wolf, too," he muttered to himself—
"it will be a mighty Kill. How slowly
the Herd moves; they are not afraid of
the one animal, whatever it is — one, did

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I say, A't«m? Look you, Brother, for
you have the Wolf-eyes: are there not
three now — three Kill drivers?"

"Yes, three Indians," answered the
Dog- Wolf. "The same old Hunt. Tve
watched it many a time from behind
the runners; I know every trick of these
slayers. Now the Run surely begins;
let us close up. Shag, for the hunters will
have no eyes for such as us ; their hearts
are full of the killing of many Buffiilo.
Also, there will be much meat warm
to a cold stomach to-night;" and he
licked his chops greedily.

"I don't like it," muttered Shag;
" the Palefaces, with their many-breathed
Fire-sticks, have killed my people, and
have driven them up from the South,
and now they are gathered together in
a few mighty Herds such as this. The
Redmen, who have not these Fire-sticks,

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but have the cunning of Wolves, see all
this, and say they too must slay a whole
Herd, where before they killed but two
or three. We '11 soon be all gone —
we, who are the meat food of these Red-
men, we '11 soon be all gone, and then
what will they do, A'tim ? Will they
kill each other, as your people do when
the ^rnine gets into their hearts ? Or
will they just lie down and die, as my
people do when the White Storm blots
out all the grass food?"

"I do not know. Great Bull," an-
swered A'tim. <* To-night I shall be
full of much meat, perhaps even to-
morrow; after that I know not what
may come with the warm trail of the
sun."

The Outcasts saw the two Indians
ride into the eye of the Wind that blew
up from the South across the Herd. As

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a sudden squall ripples a smooth lake,
so the scent of the Redmen carried by
the prairie breeze stirred the sea of
brown-backed Bufialo.

"Now they will stampede," quoth
Shag, eying this manoeuver with heavy
intentness.

"Yes," answered A'tim, "and Eagle
Shoe will lead your brethren to their
destruction. We will wait here till they
have passed, then we will follow."

"Yonder is one of the bush wings
leading to the slaughter-pen, the Stone
Hill Corral," cried Shag; "and on the
far side will be another, though we can't
see it yet."

"Yes," concurred A'tim, "I see it;
they '11 come closer and closer together,
these two run of bushes, and at the far
end there will 'be but a narrow trail like
a coulee, and after that they drop into

»9

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Stone Hill Pit — the Buf&lo Pound.
I saw the Indians building these trail-
slides last night. It will be a great Run
—a mighty Kill!"

" Yes," affirmed Shag» " we both know
of this thing — we who are of no ac-
count ; it is only the Outcasts who have
much wisdom, seemingly. Behind the
bushes hide ^he Indians, and no BufHdo
will break through because of them.
On, on they '11 gallop to the death-pit,
the Pound. Let us move up closer;
my old blood tingles with it, for I Ve
been in many a Run."

A'tim grinned like a Hyena. Already
in his Wolf nostrils was the visionary
scent of blood, and much killing. That
night he would dip his lean jaws in the
Kill of the Redmen.

Eagle Shoe and the two Indians wfad
had come up out of the level plain like

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evil spirits were leading and driving their
prey into the wide jaws of the converg-
ing stockade. The Buffalo were press-
ing on to destruction with increased
pace, following with blind stupidity the
horseman who cantered in front of them.
From a lazy stroll they had quickened
to a fast walk ; a shuffling trot had given
place to an impatient lope. Calves were
being hustled to the center of the mov-
ing Herd by loving mothers. Head
down, and wisp-tail straight out, the
brown bodies shifted from lope to mad
gallop. The Bulls snorted restlessly and
called hoarse-voiced to their consorts:
"Speed fast, for something evil fol-
lows."

The beaten earth groaned in hollow
misery ; the thrusting weight of half a
thousand head made its breast ache ; its
plaintive protest grew into an angry roar

3»

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like incessant thunder; the dust, sharp-
hoof-pounded» rose like a hot breath,
and hung fbglike over the troubled sea
of rocking bodies.

Behind, the two horsemen, wide apart
like fan points, galloped with hard-set
hices. Eagerly the ponies, bred to the
Hunt, stretched their limbs of steel-like
toughness, an^ raced for the brown
cloud that fled as a broken regiment.

Surely it was wondrous sport, as A'tim
thought; surely it was unholy slaughter,
as the Outcast Bull muttered.

Now the galloping brutes were well
between the brush walls of the ever-
narrowing stockade. A Calf, speed-
strangled, slipped from the dust cloud
and wandered aimlessly toward the
galloping horsemen; Grasshead's pony
swerved as the Calf sprawled in his path.

On the Buffalo galloped; faster and

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faster rode Eagle Shoe. His cayuse,
the fleetest Buffiilo horse of all the Blood
tribe, galloped with the full fear in his
heart of the danger that was behind.
Low over his neck crouched Eagle
Shoe; one false step — a yawning badger
hole, a swerve at a white rock, a falter,
and crunching hoo& would grind the
Redskin to pulp.

Wedge-shaped the Herd raced for
the leading horseman; hindermost la-
bored the fatted bulls, but in front thun-
dered the leader.

With hawk eye. Eagle Shoe swept the
stockade wall for the opening through
which he was to slip and let the Herd
gallop on to their destruction. Hi, yi!
there it was. Sharp to the left, swing-
ing his body far out on the side to steady
the careening cayuse, he turned. As he
shot through the opening two Indians

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rose up, and their guns belched a red
repulse in the hces of the Buffalo.

On swept the Herd — on raced the
pursuing Redskins, now joined by Eagle
Shoe. An Indian rose like a specter
behind the bush wall, and twanged a
hoarse-singing arrow into the quivering
flank of the Herd that was as one Buf-
falo. His Hunt-Cry of joy, fierce-
voiced, was like the wail of an infant —
the roar of the troubled earth hushed it
to nothing.

Fear rode on the backs of the strid-
ing beasts, and they were afraid; and in
their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gal-
lop ; there was no thought, nothing but
frenzy; no thought of breaking through
the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow,
for behind twig-laced walls were strange
demons possessed of the Man-Call, the
Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front

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was any opening; there the prairie lay
still and smiling. Wedge-like behind
their Bull Leader they thundered. To
him the open prairie in front beckoned
and smiled a lie of safe passage; the
Pound, the death-pit, dug on its rounded
breast, lay hushed in silent ambush, and
the Bull Leader saw only a narrow gate
at the far end of the fast-closing wings.
Soon he would lead all this mighty
Herd that had grown into his charge
past the walls that were alive with evil
spirits, and out to the prairie beyond.

What could rise up in front and stay
that mad rush of half a thousand Buf-
^o? Nothing — nothing! and the
Pound still lay hushed — waiting.

Behind the Bull, with implicit faith,
pressed the Herd. Only a short dis-
tance reached the dreaded yellow-leafed
walls that hid the Man enemy. In six

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breaths he would have passed the narrow
mouth, and all his heart's pride would
stream out from that death gauntlet to
the broad Range that called to him.

Even now he drew a sigh of relief;
one more jump — oh, spirit of sacred
Bufialo ! that yawning abyss ! the frown
of the Pound.,. He braced his giant
forelegs in the graveled earth on its
very brink. Too late! Behind, two
hundred tons of impetuous fright crashed
against his guarding fram^; the treach-
erous sod crumbled ; down, down, thirty
feet sheer, over the cliff he shot: two,
six, a dozen, fifty! beyond all count,
one after another, bellowing Cow and
screaming Calf, they hurtled into the
slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians*
corral.

Inferno upon earth was born in an
instant; up from the sun smile of the

ONE AFTER ANOTHER THEY HURTLED INTO THE SLAUGHTER PEN
OF THE BLOOD INDIANS' CORRAL.

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prairie rote a shadow of fiends. The
walls of the pit, large as the Coliseum,
were lined with Redskins of the mur-
der caste. Bow-strings twanged; dag-
spears, long-handled, were driven with
vengeful swish into the bellowing mob
of crazed Buffido. A sulphurous cloud
of gun smoke settled over the pit. Of
a verity it was a carnival of demons.
Surely it was a mighty Kill 1 Surely it
was a blood fresco on the beautiful
earth.

Some strong animals, not shattered in
their fall, rushed about the pit in erratic
frenzy, like victims in a Roman arena.
The mocking walls rose on every side,
grim, unsurmountable, and thrust the
captives back into the shambles; jagged
fiint arrow-heads stung their hearts like
angry serpents. Oh, blessed quick death !
better than the smother and trample

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that beat out the lives of other., inch by
inch. The gun fire belched hot in their
fcc«; the bellowing of Bulls almost
hushed the Hunt-Cry of the Red-
man.

For an hour the full carnage lived;
the joy of blood-shedding was over the
Indians; gray-ajjed warriors and lean-
chested children, all drank of the glory
of slaughter. Skinning-knife in hand,
the Squaws waited for the tumult to
subside that they might complete the
tragedy.

At last no BuffiUo chased hopelessly
over the dead bodies of his fellows, seek-
ing a vain safety; all were stricken to
their death— not one had escaped. No
bellowing was heard now; nothing but
the victory clamor of the rabble and
the gasping choke of dying Buffalo.
Out on the prairie the silly Calf wan-

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dered like a lost babe ^ the only sur-
vivor of a king-led Herd.

Like butchers, the strong-backed
Squaws leaped into the arena, its stone
floor slippery with blood, and stripped
the bodies of their victims. The In-
dians, their warrior pride holding them
aloof from this menial labor, sat and
gloried in the mighty Kill.

Shag and the Dog-Wolf had heard
the din from afar. "They will not
poison the meat to-night," muttered
A'tim, "and when they have gorged
themselves to sleep, I also shall feast,
for it must have been a great Kill."

"It's dreadful!" lamented Shag;
"it 's dreadful! I can't eat — the grass
tastes of blood i for this Kill has been
of my kind. It is diflferent with you,
A'tim. I will sleep here in this near-by
coulee, and when you have feasted. Dog

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Brother, come back to me, for I am
sad and my heart is heavy; come back,
A*tim, and sleep warm against my side."
Far into the night, by the light of
dry willow fires, like dancing ghouls,
the Squaws cut and hacked and laid
T)are the bones that had been joyous in
much life at sunrise.

Over the camp-fires, for long hours,
the pots boiled and bubbled with the
cooking meat— -the delicious Bufl&lo
flesh that was meat and bread to the
Indians; and beside the glowing embers
huge joints spitted on sharp sticks siz-
zled and threw oflT a perfume that came
to the starved nostrils of A'tim, and al-
most crazed him with eager hunger.

Would the Indians never cease eat-
ing? he wondered. Close-crept, he
watched Eagle Shoe take a piece of the
luscious "back fat"— ah, well A'tim

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knew the loin ! — and devour it greedily.
How like vultures these feeders were,
A'tim thought. At least a dozen times
each Indian returned to the flesh-pots,
the Dog-Wolf felt sure. "They are
like Wolves/* he snarled; "well I know
them. For days and days they will live
on nothing, even as a Wolf; the when
the Kill is on, they will gorge until
they are stupid. £-u-h-ha! but when
they become stupid from this feeding
surely I will also feast; wait, hunger-
pain, wait just a little."

A cold moon came up over the fog-
lined prairie and looked down wonder-
ingly at the fierce barbecue. Sometimes
the silent prairie, silent as the Catacombs,
would be startled by the exultant cry
of a blood-drunken feaster. It was a
fierce joy the Kill had brought to these
Pagans.

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Half a thousand robes Eagle Shoe
had tallied. "Waughl Ugh! Ugh!"
he had grunted in sheer joy when the
little willow wands which marked the
score had been counted before him.
Surely they would revel in things dear
to the heart of an Indian when the
robes were carted to the Hudson Bay
Store. The mffcat was feeling all right
in its way when the stomach was lean,
but at the Fort, at the time of giving up
the robes— Waugh ! God of the fallen
Indians! how they would revel in the
fierce fire-water, the glorious fire-water!
Even the Squaws, useful at the skinning
would also drink, and reel, and become
lower than the animals they had slain
to bring about all this saturnalia. Why
had his forefathers fought against the
Palefaces? Was not all this civilized
evil a good thing, after all?

tf!

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A cloud drifted a frown over the face
of the cold moon, and A'tim skulked
closer and closer — almost to the very
edge of the slaughter-pit. The Indian
Pack-Dogs snarled at his presence, and
yapped crabbedly . Other gray shadowy
less venturesome than the Dog- Wolf,
flitted restlessly back and forth in the
dim mist of the silent plain.

A'tim sneered to himself maliciously.
"To-day is the Kill of the Bufialo,"
he muttered; "to-morrow you, my
Gray Brothers, will give up your lives
because of the Death Powder. There
will be meat enough for the poisoning;
feast to-night, for to-morrow you die,
and your pelts will go with those of
the Dead Grass-Eaters. If you had not
outcasted me, I, who know of this
thing, would save you ; but to-morrow
I shall be fer away and care not."

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Would the Indians never gorge them-
selves to sleep ? Eagle Shoe's voice was
hushed ; one by one the feasters stretched
themselves upon the silent grass, and
slumbered with a heaviness of full con-
tent. When the last Squaw, weary of the
blood toil, curled beneath her blanket,
A*tim crept to the meat piles. All
the energy of his rested stomach urged
him to the feasting; there was no
stint.

Surely no Swift-runner, Dog or Wolf,
ever had such a choosing. The Pack-
Dogs kept the Wolves at bay, but with
A'tim was the scent of their own kind,
the Dog scent. He was not an utter
stranger to them, only an Outcast; they
tolerated him as a beggar at the meat
store of which they had more than
enough.

At last the hunger pain was all gone.

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Once in his Train-Dog days he had
looted a cache of White Fish, and eaten
until he could eat no more ; it was like
that now. Then, with a Dog thought
for the morrow, he stole four huge
pieces of choice meat, and cached
them in the little coulee where waited
Shag.

"Ah! you 've come back. Brother,"
said the Bull, as A'tim crept compla-
cently to his side. " I was afraid some-
thing might have happened to you, for
hunger often carries us into unknown
danger.**

"E-u-h-h! but it was a mighty Kill,
Shag. Such flesh I *ve never tasted —
never — tasted — ** He was asleep.

"I wonder what makes the moon
red,** muttered Shag, drowsily, as he,
too, nodded off to sleep.

Then again the two Outcasts, the

I '!

The Outcasts

one for whom the blood horror had
colored the moon red, and the other
with a new joy of meat fullness, slum-
bered together in the little coulee by
the Buffido Pound.

SHAG was the first to awaken; the
night's banquet caused the morn-
ing to come slowly to A'tim.
The pulling cut of Shag's heavy jaws
on the crisp grass awoke the Dog-
Wolf. He yawned heavily, and eyed
the old Bull with sleepy indifference.
Ghur-h-h-h I what a plaintive figure
the aged Bufi!alo was, to be sure.

" Good-morning, Brother," whuffed
Shag, his mouth Aill of grass; "where
are you going ? "

"I cached a piece of the new meat
here last night," answered A'tim, as he
nosed under an overhanging cut-bank.

The Outcasts

"Forest thieves I" he ejaculated an-
grily; "the Gray Stealers of Things
have taken it." His cache was as bare
as Mother Hubbard's cupboard— not
even a bone ; there was nothing but the
reddened stones where the meat had
lain, and a foul odor of Wolf. Im-
petuously he rushed to the second
cache; it, too, , was void of all meat;
the third cache held nothing but the
footprints of his gray half-brothers, the
Wolf Thieves.

Despair crept into the heart of
A*tim; what use to explore the fourth
cache f The meat would be gone of a
certainty. Why had he slept so
soundly ? Why had he hidden the meat
at all ? Oh ! but he was stupid ; as silly
as a calf Musk Ox.

And the other meat up at the Pound,
such as was left, would be full of Death

The Outcasts

Powder, put there for the Gray Run-
ners. How he hoped they might ett
it all — ^the thieves ! It seemed such un-
necessary looting, too, to steal his food
when there was so much at the
Pound ; it was like the persecution that
had kept him an Outcast from the
Wolf Pack.

"There is nothing meaner in the
world than a Wolf," he muttered;
"nothing; and already I am hungry
again."

At his fourth cache he scratched in-
differently. But the long nails of his
paw touched something soft and yield-
ing — ^it was flesh. How had it escaped
the Gray Stealers ?

"See, Shag," he said, bringing his
joint close to the Bull, and laying it
down lovingly, " last night I laid in a
grub stake, as my old Master would

The O utcasts

•ay, that would have landed me in fair
condition in the Northland. Those
accursed Wolves, of whose kind I am
not, being a Dog. have stolen it— *11 but
this piece. It was out of consideration
for you, my friend, knowing your dread
of the blood smell, that made me cache
It a little apart. How I wish I had
lain on it— made my bed on its soft,
sweet sides. Such meat I have not
eaten for many a day."

"I'm sorry," lamented Shag; "it's
too bad. Here is nothing but sorrow
for every one. See how still and quiet
die old Range is ; only those slayers of
Redmen up bv the Pound. Years

perhaps when you were a Pup

A'tim,

all this prairie that

its short Bufialo

•go,

IS so

grass, was

with people of my kind

beautifuJ

covered
Antelope

—though they were not of our kind.

The Outcasts

tdll we liked to see them — there was
no harm in them, being, like ourselves.
Grass Feeders ; and to the South- West,
Dog-Wolf "

"I am no Wolf," interrupted A'tim,
thinking of his stolen meat; *< I am a
Dog!"

"Well, well, Dog, to the South-
West — ^from here we can even see Chief
Mountain where is that land — there
were beautiful big-horned Elk, also
Grass Feeders, and of a sweet tem-
per.

"I know," ejaculated A*tim, licking
at his flesh food ; " in the North it
was just the same with the Caribou, the
whole land alive with them— and
Mooswa, too."

" But now, A'tim, since the coming
of the Palefaces we arc slaughtered by
them and by the Redmen. L-o-u-g-h

The Out casts

— H-OK) I I ihall leave this old Range
to-day forever ; my heart it tad."

"Come with me, then, Brother,"
aried A'tim ; « together we will go to
the land of which I have spoken. It
M » long, lone trail for one. I will
guard you wcU, for I know Man's
ways; and at night we will rest side by
side.'* ^

" I will go,"'said the Bull simply.

"Let us start," cried A'tim, seizing
his jomt of Buffalo meat, and sweeping
the horizon with suspicious eyes.

" Your eating is heavy," said Shag ;
•• I will carry it for you on my horns.
L-o-u-g-h— h-ul the blood smells ter-
rible!" he exclaimed as A'tim pulled
the buflWo flesh over Shag's forehead.

Then the two Outcasts took up the
long traU toward the Northland, where
in a woof of sage green and bracken

The Outcasts

gold was woven a scheme of fleih-
colored Cattillejia, and wine-tinted
mooie-weed, and purple pea-flower;
where was the golden shimmer of Gail-
lardia and slender star-leafed sun-
flower; the pencil stalk of blue-joint,
and the tasseled top of luscious pony •
grass: a veritable promised land for the
old Bull, buflTeted of his fellows, and
finding the short grass of the Southland
stubbornly hard against his worn teeth.
There, too, was Wapoos, the Hare
so easily caught in the years of plenty,
and A'tim need never feel the pangs of
a collapsing stomach. There also were
Marten, and Grouse, and Pheasant, and
Kit Beaver, and other animals sweet
against the tongue. Surely the Dog-
Wolf had lingered too long in that bar-
ren Southern country, where there was
only the rat-faced Gopher, who was

The Out casts

but a mouthful; with, perhaps, the
chance of a Buflalo Calf caught away
from the Herd. Even that chance was
gone now, for man was killing them
all off. Yes, it was well that they
should trail to the Northland, each said
to the other.

For days they plodded over the prai-
rie, cobwebbed into deep ruts by Bufialo
trails leading from grassland to water.

It was on the third day that A'tim
said to the Buffalo Bull : " I am thirsty.
Shag ; my throat is hot with the dust!
Know you of sweet drinking near-
even with your sense of the hidden
drinking you can find it. Great Bull,
can you not ? "

"This hollow u-ail leads to water,
most assuredly," answered Shag, step-
ping leisurely into a path that was like
an old plow furrow in a hay meadow.

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" Even this shows how many were my
people once." The Buffalo sighed.
*' Within sight are more trails like this
than you have toes to your feet, Dog-
Wolf — ^this whole mighty Range from
here to the Uplands, which is the home
of the White Storm, is so marked widi^
the trails of my people ; and now there
are only these Water Runs to remind us
of them.**

Soon they came to a little lake blue
with the mirrored sky, its mud banks
white as though with driven snow.
"The bitter watermark,** said Shag, as
his heavy hoof sank through the white
crust on the dark mud.

" I know," answered A*tim — " alkali,
that*s what Man calls it.'*

** Let us rest here this night — close to
the drinking,*' commanded Shag ; ** to-
morrow we will go forward again.**

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That night A*tiin ate the last of the
Buffalo meat Shag had packed on his
horns for him. The next day they
trailed again toward the Northland.

When they came to a river that was
to be forded Shag carried the Dog-Wolf
on his back ; when there was presence
of danger, a suspicious horseman. Shag
curled up like a boulder, or crouched in
a coulee, and if ihe Man came too near
A'tim led him away on a hopeless chase.
Daily the Dog-Wolf grew into the heart
of Shag, the Buffalo, who listened with
eager delight to his tales ctf the North-
land.

A'tim had fared well while the meat
lasted ; but they were now in a land of
much hunger— a land almost devoid of
life ; and the Dog-Wolf was coming
again mto the chronic state of his exist-
ence — ^famine.

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As they trailed Northward the gran
grew richer and softer and more lus-
cious; Shag commenced to put on fat.
But daily the Dog-Wolf grew hungrier
and thinner. In the vast bolitude, walled
on every side by the never-ending sky
from which the stars peeped at night
and the sun smiled by day, there was
little for die Dog-Wolf,who was a flesh-
eater. Scarce anything but Gophers;
not an Antelope, nor a Mule Deer, nor
a Mack Tail had they seen for days.
Once a Kit Fox, the small, gray kind of
the prairie, waited tantalmngly with his
nozzle &it on the turf, seemingly asleep,
until A'tim was within two jumps, then
he dipped nonchalantly into his burrow
as though hehadjust been called todinner.
A, froth of disappointed rage wreathed
the hungry lips of tke Dog -Wolf.
Surely he was in danger of starvation.

The OutciMs

./'"' *^° ^7" he lived on a rinele
Mole unearthed quite by chance; then
a Gopher, stalked from behind the big
leg* of Shag, saved him from utter col-
^pse. Of a verity he was living from
hand to mouth ; such abject poverty he
had never known, not even in the South-
land by the Blood Reserve.

" Carry me. Brother," he said to the
Bm, "for r am. weak like a new Pup.
W I could but see a Trapper's shack or
a camp," he confided to Shag, as he
clung to the Bull's hump. " I might find
something to eat— Ghur-r-r! a piece of
the Pork fitting, or a half-picked bone
or . EhKk killed by the Fire-stick"
Even one of my own kind, a Dog. would
I eat, I'm that fiunished— Great Bull, is
that not a diack?" he exclaimed sud-
denly as asquare building loomed on the
horizon.

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" I think I see it," said the Bull ;
" but my eyes arc no longer good at a
great distance."

As they journeyed toward the object
Shag suddenly stopped and gave a loud
bubbling guffiiw.

"What are you laughing at, Bull?'^
demanded A'tim angrily.

" I, who am an Outcast because of
my great age, Dog-Wolf, am even now
a great Fool ; and so art thou, A'tim, an
Outcast and a Fool."

"Your wit is like yourself. Shag,
heavy and not too pleasing. Pray, why
am I a Fool ! "

" That is no shack," answered the
Bull; "it is but a rock; there's a line
of them, like a trail of teepees, for miles,
stretching for the length of many a day's
march, running as straight as the cough
of a Fire-stick, all looking like that one.

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Wie-sah-ke-chack, who is God of the
Animals, put them there for the Buffido
to brush their hides against — a most
wise act."

With a weary sigh A'tim turned his
eyes from the deceitful rock, and watched
furtively for the chance of even a small
Kill as they journeyed.

Day by day Shag was eating of the
richer grass an*d becoming of a great
corpulency. Enviotu thoughts com-
menced to creep into the mind of
A*tim. Why should he starve and be-
come a skeleton, while this hulking
Bull, to whom he was acting as a friend
and guide, waxed hi in the land that
was of his finding ? Many times Shag
carried the Dog-Wolf on his back, and
at night the heat of his great body kept
A'tim warm.

But the vicious envy that was in the

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Wolf mind of A'tim started a line of
proper villainy. Let the Bull grow fet.

If the worst came to the worst ^if no

other meat was to be had— when the
Frogs, and Moles, and such Waterfowl
as might be surprised had failed, and his
very life depended on food, would not
there be much eating off the body of
this Bull Buffalo ? Therefore let him wax
ht. At first A*tim only thought of it
jiMt a little— a flash-light of evil, like the
sting of a serpent ; but daily it grew
stronger. What was Shag to him? He
was not of his kind. If, when they came
to the Northland, to the forests of the
Athabasca, the Wapoos were in the year
of plague, and all other animals had fled
the boundaries because of this, and there
was no food to be had, why should he
not feast for days and days off" the Buf-
falo?— that is, if anything happened to

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Shag. Something might happen to him
veiy easily. A'tim knew of many mus-
kegs where a stupid^ heavy-footed Bull
might be mired; also, there was the
poison plant, the Death Flower of the
Monkshood. He could persuade the
stupid Shag to eat of it, and in an hour
the Bull would die— puffed up like a
Cow's udder; it would not hurt the
fiesh. £u-h-h ! ' there were many ways.
Shag's company was good — ^he was weary
of being alone ; it was dreadful to be an
Outcast; but rather than starve to death
— ^wefl, he would eat his friend.

What matter to him the ever-increas-
ing beauty of the landscape, the richer
growth that appealed strongly to his
companion from the bare Southern plain ?
The wild rose bushes, red-berried in the
autumn of their fruitage, caressed their
ankles as they passed; pink and white

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berries clung to silver-leafed Bufialo wil-
low like rose-tinted snowflakes; hazel
and wild cherry and gentle maple swayed
in the prairie wind, and sent fluttering
leaf-kisses to the parent earth. Great
patches of feed-land waved silver gray
with a tasseled spread of seeding grasses..
Oh ! but they were coming into a land
of much growth. Shag the Bull lowed
in soft content as he rested full-bellied
on the black-loamed prairie. All the
time A'tim was but thinking of some-
thing to kill, something to eat.

That was as they came to Egg Lake.

" Trail slowly, kind Brother," admon-
ished the Dog-Wolf. "It is now the
season of many Ducks here, even at Egg
Lake; perchance in the reed grass yon-
der, by the willows, I may stalk a Wavcy,
or even a Goose." Ghur-r-r! but he
was hungry!

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A'tim stole on in front; flat to the
grass his belly, and low his head. As
sUently as floating foam on stiU water he
passed into the thicket of reed grass, his
fierce eyes fixed on four Mallard that
gabbled and dove their supple heads to
the mud bottom for wild rice. Only a
little fiirthcr and A'tim would be upon
them. Shag was watching solicitously
the stalk of his friend.

Suddenly, and without provocation,
the lake seemed to stand up on end
and commence throwing things about.
The Bull was startled— what did it all
mean? Gradually something huge and
black began to take shape and form
from amidst the whirl of many mov-
ing things.

"A Bear! " gasped Shag. « By the
strength of my neck he means to uevom
A'tim ! "

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With a rushing charge Shag was upon
the fighters — only just in time, for
Muskwa had A'tim in his long-clawed
grasp, and in another instant would have
crushed his Dog ribs. And in the suc-
cession of surprises one came to Muskwa
with vivid suddenness, for he was lifted
on a pair of strong horns, like a Cub,
and thrown with great speed ftr out
into the thin waters of the lake.

"Thanks, Great Bull," panted the
frightened Dog-Wolf, creeping pain-
fully from the thick sedge grass. ** He
also was after the ducks, I think; I
walked right on top of him, I was that
busy with my hunt."

" If I had not been in such a blun-
dering hurry," lamented Shag, "I
might have saved him for your eating ;
but he*8 gone now."

And so they journeyed till they came

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(ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

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/APPLIED IN/HGE Ine

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Nt* York 14609 USA

(71«} 4a2-0300-nK)iw
(7t«) 2W-9M9-FB

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to Battle River. There A'tim caught
three frogs among the blossom-topped
leeks ; they were no more than three
small oysters to a hungry man.

"The water is deep and the banks
steep," grunted Shag, looking dubiously
at the stream.

•'Lower down is a ford," answered
A'tim; "we will cross there." For
when Shag swam in deep water the
Dog-Wolf found it difficult to keep on
his back.

" A teepee ! " exclaimed A'tim, as
they came close to the crossing.

" Let us go back and swim the
river," pleaded Shag; "there will be
hunters within the lodge."

'*No, wait you here," commanded
A'tim; "there will surely be food in
tlie teepee, and I mean to have it."

" Be careful," warned Shag; " this is

MUSKWA HAD a'tIM IN HIS LONG-CLAWED GRASP.

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a land of scarcity, and the hunters may
bring us evil."

But already A*tim was skulking toward
a small canvas tent, gleaming white beside
the blue waters of Battle River. The Bull
lay down to conceal his great bulk, and
watched apprehensively the foray of hi»
pillaging comrade. A*tim circled until
he was down wind from the teepee.

" The Man is not in his burrow," he
muttered,sniffing the air that floated from
the tent to his sensitive nostrils; "but I
smell the brown Pork Meat they eat."

Cautiously, stealthily, burying his
brown-gray body in the river grass, he
stole to the very tent pegs of the can-
vas shelter; there he listened, as still
and silent as the river stones. There
was no sound within; no living thing
even drew breath beyond the cotton
wall — ^he could have heard that.

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In through the flap he slipped. Yes,
his scouting had been perfect. A pair
of blankets, an iron fry-pan, and— ah !
there was the rich brown meat, its
white edge gleaming a welcome. With
a famished snarl A'tim fastened his lean

jaws upon it, and sprang for the door.
He was none too quick. "Thud,

thudety-thud, thudety-thudety-thud ! "'

a horseman was .hammering down the

sloping bank across the ford.

As A'tim leaped from the tent the

horseman shouted and drove big rowel

spurs hard up the flank of his galloping

Cayuse.

*|Just my evil chance!'* snarled
A'tim as he headed for Shag; "but
what is a small piece of Bacon com-
pared with a big Bufl^alo?** For into
his quick Wolf brain came the safety
thought that should the pursuing hunter

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sight Shag he would follow, and let the
bacon go.

As the Man galloped he unslung a
gun, and fired at the fleeing Dog-Wolf.
A little sputter of dust drove into the
nostrils of A'tim as a trade ball spat in
his face and buried itself in front of
him. There was no second shot ; only
the " thudety-thud " of the Pony's hoofs.
The pursuer was armed with a muzzle-
loading trade musket.

The shot startled Shag. Now he
could see them rushing his way ; soon
they would be upon him With a bel-
low of frightened rage at the stupidity
of A*tim, he stuck his scraggy tail
out with its tip curled over his back,
and broke into a solemn gallop.

In an instant the hunter swerved from
his course and raced for the Bull, load-
ing his gun as the Cayuse swung along

si'

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under a free rein. Shag chuckled softly
as he spread his great quarters, and
hung his nose closer to earth.

"It's a down trail for miles," he
muttered, « and I, who in my prime
have outrun the fastest Bufl^lo Horses
of the Bloods and Blackfeet, can surely
show that lean-flanked Pack Animal a
long trail. Mou-o-o-h! but already I
feel in my veins, the strength of this
rich feeding." And the huge form
slipped down the gentle grade of slop-
ing plain like an express train. Once
the hunter threw the butt of his musket
to shoulder and fired; but half the
powder charge had spilled in the rest-
less loading, and the trade ball wan-
dered aimlessly yards wide of the flee-
ing Bull. Shag grunted and kinked
his tail derisively as the spirit of old
times threw its glamor over him. It

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was years since he had been thought
worthy of the chase ; surely he was be-
coming of some account in the Buffalo
world again.

A'tim, sitting on his haunches,
watched the departing cavalcade, and
industriously absorbed much of the fat
pork. "I can carry it better in my
stomach," he reasoned philosophically.
"But who would have thought old
Shag had it in him?'* he muttered in
admiration.

As he gazed, the extent of territory
between Shag and his pursuer widened
perceptibly. The overworked Pony
was tired ; no doubt his rider had trailed
for many a league with him, and he was
in no condition for the fierce gallop of
a Buffalo Run.

A'tim finished the bacon with un-
doubted relish, then struck out across
the boundless field of grass. " I must

-lii

_ The Outc asts

not lose sight of Shag." he thought;

" there will not always be bacon for the

stealing when I am on the edge of

starvation."

At last the Pony was pulled to a

walk, turned about, and headed for the

teepee that nestled on the river bank.

The rider was indulging in much in-
judicious vituperation of all the animal
kingdom, including his own well-blown
Cayuse, whose trembling flanks vouched
for the energy with which he had tried
to overhaul the galloping Bull.

A'tim circled wide, and, when he
considered it safe, fell into Shag's trail
and followed on. Soon he overtook his
comrade. « Well done, my big Bull ! "
he exclaimed; "that was a rare turn
you did me."

"It was." answered Shag shortly;
" hardly of my own choosing, though •
you thrust it upon me. I suppose yoJ

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were bringing me the bacon, kind
Brother?"

"I knew you could do it/ flattered
A'tim. " You have the full speed of a
Spike Horn, and the great wisdom of
your own age."

Shag said nothing ; he was angr}' a'.
the selfish heartlessness of the other
Outcast. It seemed hardly a fair
recognition of the service he had ren-
dered the Dog- Wolf when he prodded
the Bear from his throat.

" Come, let us be moving,'* he said;
"we must find another crossing."

" Oh ! but I feel years younger,"
cried A*tim joyfully, as they headed
again for Battle River. " Euh-euh-
euh-euh ! Yap-yap-yap ! " he laughed ;
" this eating has put the joyousness of
a Pup into my heart."

That night they crossed the river at
another ford, and slept in a blufl^of slim-

1,1

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bodied white poplars, for they were on
the edge of the North timber lands.

" This is good cover," muttered A'tim,
as he raked the yellow heart-shaped
leaves of the poplar together for a bed.
"It's new to me," muttered Shag;
"and it will also give cover to one's
enemies ; one must be very cautious in
th-j Northland, I think."

Then the two Outcasts slept to-
gether on the border of the North
feiryland to which the Dog-Wolf was
leading Shag the Bull.

IN the morning A*tim had for his
breakfast a wistful remembrance
of the yesterday's eating — that
was all; while Shag made a frugal
meal off the bronzed grass, fast curing
on its stem for the winter forage.

"There'll be good eating here for
the Grass Feeders," he said, grinding
leisurely at the wild hay.

"Indeed there will," answered the
Dog-Wolf. " The Grass Feeders will
wax fat for the benefit of the Meat Eat-
ers. I wish one would come my way
now," he sighed hurgrily.

" We are almost half way," contin-
ued A'tim, as he trotted beside the long-
striding Bull.

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"Tin glad of that. Brother. My foot
joints arc not so well oiled as they once
were, and are getting hot and dry.
Strange that we should not see some of
our cousins, is it not, Dog-Wolf ?"
I saw one yesterday," replied A'tim.
Aye, Brother, and he saw you, too."

" Else I had eaten him," added the
Dog-Wolf.

"A Coyote?** asked Shag incredu-
lously; "eat a Coyote? Impossible!
No animal ever ate a Coyote ! "

** No animal was ever so hungry as I
was yesterday before Wie-sah-ke led me
to the Fat Bacon."

« It's terribly dreary," said Shag, re-
turning again to his first thought; "no
Elk, no Antelope, no Buffalo, no Indian
Cayuse. Why is it? Has Man killed
them all off, as he has done with my
people?"

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" Yc8, Man, and the Man-fire. From
the black that is underneath this new
grass I know that last year the Man-fire
swept over this land faster and straighter

than a Wolf Pack gallops "

Suddenly he broke off and made a
fierce rush into the prairie. A brown
Cow-Bird flew up and lighted on Shag's
horn. The Dog-Wolf rose on his hind
legs and snapped viciously at the Bird.
" Steady, Dog-Wolf, steady," admon-
ished Shag, "this is a friend of mine.
Do you not know the Cow-Bird, who
is always with the Herd?"

"Who is your friend?" asked the
Cow-Bird of Shag. " Queer company
you keep. Great Bull; a Herd Leader
leading a Wolf is new to me."

«I*m no Wolf, Scavenger!" re-
tortcd A'tim. "Fm a Dog; FU crack
you r ■ "

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" Perhaps, perhaps/'retortedtheCow-
Bird.

Perhaps what?" snarled A'tim.
' Perhaps you're a Dog, and perhaps
you will crack my — ^neck, you were go-
ing to say. Are you leading the Bull
to your Wolf Pack, perhaps — Dog?"

** Never mind. Comrades," interrupted
Shag. «* We are elad of your company,
little Cow-Bird — are we not, A'tim?"

" Yes," answered the Dog-Wolf, lick-
ing his chops, and looking treacherously
from the comer of his slit eyes at the
Bird.

" Where are you going. Great Bull?"
asked the Cow-Bird, spreading his deep-
hrown wings mockingly, as though he
would fly down on the Dog-Wolfs head.

"To the Northland."

"I know," quoth the Bird; "but I
stick to the plains ; why, I don't know,

7«

"STEADY, DOG-WOLF, STEADY,'" ADMONISHED SHAG, "THIS IS A

FRIEND OF MINE."

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for there are few Bufialo now. Jhis
summer I made a long trip. I started
in at Edmonton with a Herd of the
Man's Bufialo."

"I've seen them," said Shag; "great
clumsy things without shape or make;
as big behind as they are in front ; of a
verity the shape of their own carts."

"Well," continued the Bird, "there
was a matter of a dozen of these crea-
tures tied to a four-wheeled cart, and I
followed the Herd through to the place
they call Fort Garry. But I got tired
of it— day after day the same thing.
What I like is to fly about. Now, Fll
travel with you to-day, just for compan-
ionship, and to-morrow I shall be off
with some new friend."

Perhaps," mumbled the Wolf.
Did you speak. Wolf?" perked the
Bird.

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Ml!

1 1

"I said, « Good riddance/ " snapped
A'tim.

" He, he, he ! " laughed the Cow-
Bird; "your friend is pleasant company
Great Bull/' ^ ^'

That night the two Outcasts and the
Cow-Bird camped together, near the
Saskatchewan River; the brown body
curled up contentedly on Shag's horn
while the Dog-Wolf slept against his'
paunch. i

In the morning the Cow-Bird was
gone.

"Have you seen him?" Shag asked
of A'tim.

" He flew away early," answered the
Dog-Wolf

" He should have taken all his coat
with him," answered Shag, thrusting
from his mouth a bunch of grass in which
were three brown feathers.

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«• He flew far away," affirmed A'tun
sheepishly.

«The length of your gullet, Doe-
Wolf," declared Shag. « Thou must ^
wondrous hungry to eat one of our own
party — a cannibal."

A'tim answered nothing as they jour-
neyed down along the steep, heavily
wooded river bank, its soft shale sides slid
mto mighty terraces, but in his heart was
a murder thought, as he eyed the great
bulk of his Brother Outcast, that he
would also eat him.

They passed over the broad Saskat-
chewan, running emerald green between
Its high, pink-earthed banks, through a
long, tortuous ford, taking Shag to the
belly and halfway up his ribs. As they
topped the north bank and rested after
the steep climb, A'tim pointed his nose
to a distant flar where nestled the white

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stockaded fort of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany.

"That's Fort Edmonton," he said
bitterly ; " and see the cluster of teepees
all about, thick as Muskrat lodges in a
muskeg. Because of the dwellers within
there is no eating to be had here for
me. Cree Indians, and Half-breeds, and
Pale&ces, all searching the country for
something to kiH; and when they have
slaughtered the Beaver, and Marten, and
Foxes, and everyting else that has life,
they bring the pelts there and get fire-
water, which burns their stomachs and
sets their brains on fire. An honest
hunter HI t myself, who only kills to stay
the hunger that is bred in him, has no
chance ; we must sneak and steal, or die."
"But there will be much waste of
the Bacon Food there, surely, A'tim.
Why dc you not replenish the stomach

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(

that is but a curse to you, being empty,
at the lodges we see?"

"No, friend Bull," answered the
Dog-Wolf; "unwittingly enough I
nearly caused you disaster the last time
I fed at Man's expense. That time there
was but one hunter; here are many, an^
they would slay you quick enough."

This was all a lie; the Dog-Wolf had
no such consideration for his Brother
Outcast. At the Fort were fierce-fenged
hounds that would run him to earth of
a certainty should he venture near;
either that, or if caught he would be
quickly clapped into a Dog Train, and
made to push against a collar. Many a
weary day of that he had in his youth;
he would rather starve as a vagabond.
Also, would he not perhaps fall heir to
the eating that was on the body of the
huge Bull?

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"No, Brother/' he said decisively;
*'we shall soon come to a land with
food for both of us ; let us go."

Toward the Athabasca they journeyed.
The prairie was almost done with, only
patches of it now like fields ; poplar and
willow and birch growing everywhere;
and beyond the Sturgeon River, tiny for-
ests of gnarled, stunted jack-pine, creep-
ing wearily fronn a soft carpet of silver
and emerald moss which lay thick upon
the white sand hills. Little red berries,
like blood stars, peeped at them from
the setting of silk lace moss — winter-
green berries, and grouse berries, and
lowbush cranberries, all blushing a fu-
rious red.

" I could sleep here forever," mut-
tered Shag, as he rolled in luxurious
content on this forest rug.

" I can't sleep because of my hunger

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ptins," snarled A'tim. «« You who are
well fed care not how I fare." A'tim
was petulantly unreasonable.

Shag looked at the Dog-Wolf won-
deringly. " I'm sorry for you, for your
hunger. Dog Brother. Did I not call
lovingly to a Moose Calf but to-day^
thinking to entice him your way?"

••Yes, and frightened the big-nosed,
spindle-legged suckling with your gruff
voice, so that what should have been an
easy stalk turned out a long chase for
nothing."

••Well, well," responded Shag sooth-
ingly, "no doubt you will soon have
food — ^this can't go on forever, this bar-
renness of the woods; I'm sorry for
you, for once I had nothing to eat for
days and days. That was ten seasons
of the Calf-gathering since — I remem-
ber it well. The White Storm came

«5

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in the early Cold Time, and buried the
whole Range to the depth of my belly.
We Buffalo did nothing but drift, drift,
drift— like locusts, or dust before the
wind. We always go head-on to a
storm, for our heads are warm clothed
with much hair, but when it lasts for
days and days we grow weary, and just
drift looking for food, for grass. I re-
member, at Pot iHolc, which is a deep
coulee, and has always been a great
shelter to us in such times, on one side
was some grass still bare of the White
Storm ; but Jie Buffalo were so many
they ate it as locusu might-^uicker
than I tell it. As I have said, Dog-
Wolf, I lived for a month off" the fat
that was in my loins about the kidneys,
for I had never a bite to eat. Then
the fat, aye, even the red meat, com-
menced to melt from my hump and my

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neck, even to my legs, and I grew
weak— 6o weak I could hardly crawl.
Many of us died; first the Cow Moth-
ers, giving up their lives for the Calves,
A'tim; then the old people; we who
were in the middle of life (for I was a
Smooth Horn then, Brother, and Leader
of the Herd) lived through this ter-
rible time.

** It was a great weeding out of the
Herd ; it was like the sweep of the fire
breath that bares the prairie orly to
make the grass come up stronr 'nd
tweeter again. Longingly we \ ^ced
for our friend, the gentle Chinook, to
come up out of the Southwest ; but this
time it must hav« got lost in the moun-
tains, for only the South wind, which is
always cold, or a blizzard breath from
the Northwest blew across the bleak,
white-covered Buffalo land.

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"One night, just as I thought I must
surely die before morning, a sweet
moisture came into my nostrils, and I
knew that our Wind Brother, the
Chinookj had found us at last. The
sun smiled at us in the morning and
warmed the white cover, and by night
we could see the grass ; next day the
White Storm was all gone. So, Brother
Outcast, I too, know what it is to be
hungry. Have a strong heart— food
will be sent."

"Sent!** snapped A'tim crabbedly;
" who will send it ? Will my Gray Half-

Brothers, who are Wolves, send it

come and lay a dead Caribou at my
feet? Will the Train Dogs, of whose
kind I am, come and feed me with
White Fish— the dried Fish their driv-
ers give them so sparingly?"

" I cannot say, Dog-Wolf; but surely

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food does not come of one's own think-
ing. The grass does not grow because
of me, but for me. The Animals all
say it is our God, Wie-sah-ke-chack,
who sends the eating."

" E-u-h-h ! " yawned A'tim sulkily,,
swinging his head in petulant irrita-
tion, «*I must have meat, no matter
where it comes from; I can't starve."
There was a covert threat in the Dog-
Wolt's voice, but Shag did not notice
it — ^his mind was above that sort of
thing.

In the evening, as they entered a lit-
tle thicket of dogberry bushes growing
in low land, a small brown shadow
flitted across their path. With a snarl
A'tim was after it, crushing through
the long, dry, spike-like grass in hot
pursuit. Shag waited.

Back and forth, up and down, in and

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out, double and twist, sometimes near
and sometimes far, but always with the
" Ghur-r-r I " of the Dog- Wolf s breath
coming to Shag's ears, the shadow and
its pursuer chased. Suddenly Shag
started as a plaintive squeak died awa)
in a harsh growl of exultation.

"He has him," muttered Shag;
" this will stay the clamor of his hunger
talk, I hope."

The well-blown Dog-Wolf came
back carrying a Hare. « Hardly worth
the trouble," he said disdainfbUy, lay-
ing the fluffy figure down at Shag's feet.
"Now I know of a surety why the
Flesh Feeders have fled the Boundaries;
it is the Plague Year of Wapoos. This'
thing that should be fat, and of tender
juiciness, is but a skin full of bones;
there are even the plague lumps in his
throat. There is almost as much poi-

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son in this carrion as in a Trapper's
bait; but I must cat of it, for I am
wondrous hungry."

" I, also, have eaten bad food in my
time," said Shag ; " great pains in the
stomach I*^ had from it. Some sea-,
sons the White Storm would come
early in the Cold Time, and cover the
grass not yet fully ripened into seed. It
would hold warm because of this, and
grow again, and become green; then
the white cover would go, and the
grass would freeze and become sour to
the tongue. Mou-u-ah ! but all through
the Cold Time I would have great
pains. How far do we go now, A*tim,
till we rest in the Northland?"

" Till there is food for both of us."
" Quite true," concurred Shag. «« We
must go on until you also have food, my
friend."

The Outcasts

It was coming up the bank out of
La Biche River that A'tim, perfectly
mad with hunger, made a vicious snap
at the Bull's leg, just above the hock,
meaning to hamstring him. Shag flip-
ped about and faced the Dog Wolf.

"What is this, A'tim?" he de-
manded, lowering his horns and stamp-
ing in vexed restjiessness.

" A big fly of the Bull-Dog kind. I
snapped at him, and in my eagerness
grazed your leg."

Shag tossed his huge head unbeliev-
ingly, and snorted through his dilated
nostrils. "There are no Bull-Dogs
now, A*tim ; they were killed off days
since by the white-striped Hornets."

" There was one. Shag — at least I
thought so. Great Bull."

" Well, don't think again — just that
way. Once bitten is twice shy with

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me ; and, as you sec, I carry the Tribe
mark of your Wolf-kind in my thigh
since the time I was a Calf"

" Ghur-r-r ! Of the Wolf-kind, quite
true. Great Bull — that is their way;
but I, who am no Wolf, but a Dog, do
••ot seek to hamstring my friends." "

The Bull answered nothing, but as
they journeyed watched his companion
carefully.

" Dreadfully foolish 1 " mused A'tim.
" I must coax this stupid Bull into a
muskeg ; his big carcass will keep me
alive through all the Cold Time."

THEY were now well within
the treacherous muskeg lands
which Jsorder the Athabasca ;
and that very night, while Shag slum-
bered in the deep sleep of a full age,
A'tim, whose lean stomach tugged at
his eyelids and kept them open, stole
off into the forest, and searched by the
strong light of the moon for a bog that
would mire his comrade to death.

An open piece of swamp land, fringed
by tamarack and slim-bodied spruce,
promised fair for his scheme. Back and
forth, back and forth over its cushion
of deep moss he passed, seeking for a

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treacherous place— a place wherein Shag
would sink to the belly; where the
sand-mud would grasp his legs like
soft chains and hold him to his death,
but not engulf the body— that must
remain for A'tim's eating.

" Euh-h ! the very thing ! " he ex^
claimed joyously, as his foot sank deep
in soft slime. "Yes, indeed, the very
spot. Now must I cover up its black
mud so that the blurred eyes of old Shag
will see only a fair trail, not over ankle-
deep.**

For an hour he labored with rare
villainy, carrying bunches of moss to
cover up the black ooze, that was not
more than twenty feet broad; even
sm? 11 willow wands and coarse rush grass
he placed under the moss, so that he
himself, light-footed as a cat, might cross
ahead of the unsuspicious Bull, and lure

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him to his detth. " There," he said
finally, as he sat on his haunches and
rested for a minute, looking like a ghoul
in the ghostly moonlight, ** I think that's
a trick worthy of my Wolf cunning."
Then he hastened back to the other
Outcast.

Shag was awake and heard the Dog-
Wolf creep to his side. " Where have
you been, A'tim?" he asked sleepily.

** I heard a strange noise in the forest,
and thought perhaps some evil Hunter
had followed your big trail; fearing for
your safety. Brother, I went to see what
it was."

And?" queried Shag.

'It was nothing — nothing but a Lynx
or some prowling animal." Shag was
alrr-4v snoring heavily again, and the
Do^ Wolf, tired by his exertion, also
soon clambered.

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Next morning A'tim was in rare good
humor. « We shall only have another
day or two of this weary tramp," he
said, "for the air is full of the perfume
of living things ; also things that are
dead, for yonder, high in the air, float
three Birds of the Vulture kind. I shall
be in the land of much eating to-day
or to-morrow, I know."

"I am glad of that," answered Shag
heartily; «I am tired of this long tramp
— my bones ache from it."

Talking almost incessantly to distract
the other's attention, A'tim led the way
straight for his muskeg trap.

"There is some lovely blue-joint
grass on the other side of this beautiful
little plain," he said as they came to the
tamarack border of the swamp.

' Is it safe crossing ? " asked Shag.

'Quite safe," answered the Dog-
97

«i

The Outcasts

Wolf; •' there is not a mud spot to be
seen— you will scarce wet a shin. I
will go ahead and warn you should it
so happen that there be a soft hole;
follow close in my track."

•*Lough-hu! lough-hul" grunted
the Bull at the first step in the muskeg,
as his foot cushioned in the deep moss:
"this is like walking on the White
Storm." Ere he could take another
step a startled, "Mouah! Mouahl"
struck on his ear. It was the call of
his own kind ; and whipping about in
an instant, he saw, staring at him from
the tamarack fringe, a Buflfalo Cow.

Where had she come from ? It was
the God of Chance that had sent her
to save the unsuspicious, noble old Bull,
only he did not know that — ^how could
he? "Perhaps she is an Outcast like
myself," he muttered, advancing eager-

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ly to caress her forehead with his
tongue.

" Come back, Shag," caUed the Dog-
Wolf, seeing the destruction of his plan ;
" come back to the sweet feeding ; that
18 but a disgraced Cow, outcasted from
some Herd."

Startled by the bark of the Dog-Wolf,
or perhaps by the ungainly garb of the'
hairless, manged Bull, the Cow turned
and fled. Excited into activity. Shag
gallop 1 after her, his huge feet making
the forest echo with the crack of smash-
ing timber as he slid through the bush
like an avalanche; but the Cow was
swift of foot, and pig-jinked around
stumps and over timber, and down
coulees and up hills until Shag was
feirly blown and forced to give up the
pursuit.

"Was there ever such a queer happen-

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ing ?" exclaimed Shag, staring after the
vaniihed figure of the Cow. A'tim had
followed with eager gallop, inwardly
reviling the ill luck which had snatched
from him the mighty Kill of the fat
Bull. The Cow Buffalo was, perhaps,
only one of those spirit animals that
prowl at night and utter strange cries.

Also had they galloped miles past
the muskeg tra[i, and A'tim dared not
take the Bull back; some new plan
must be devised for his destruction.

"Where did she come from ?" puffed
Shag, his froth-covered tongue lolling
from between big, thick lips ; ** where
did she come from, A'tim, you who
know the Northland forests?"

" She's a Wood Buffalo," answered
the Dog-Wolf.

"What's a Wood Buffalo?" asked
Shag.

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"They are even at yourself. Great
Bull; driven from the plains by the
many-breathed Fire-stick, they have
come to this good Range of the North-
land. They go not in Herds, but few
together, as Mooswa and others of the
forest."

"Why did she run away. Brother
A'tim?" grunted Shag, lying down to
rest.

The Dog-Wolf laughed disagreeably.
" That is but the way of the Cow kind,"
he answered.

" No," said Shag decisively ; " she was
frightened."

" She was," assented A'tim; "Ghur-r-r!
I should say so."

"At what?" asked Shag.

" Forgive me. Brother, but most as-
suredly she was frightened by you."

" By me— am I not of her kind?"

lOI

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" Yes, but how should she know ?
Are you like a Bufl^o, Shag? Your
hide is bare and scarred, and perhaps
she took you for some evil thing/'

Shag looked ruefully at his great,
scraggy sides, so like an Elephant's, only
more disreputable, and sighed resign-
edly; "I suppose I can't help it," he
muttered.

** You can. Shag; if you will but eat
of the Fur Flower it will cure this evil
disease which is in your blood, and
bring back the beautiful silk coat that
was the envy of the Buffalo Range."

" Do you speak the truth, Dog-Wolf?"
asked Shag.

" Most surely. All the Dwellers in
the Northland know that. Are not all
the Forest-Dwellers full-haired?"

« And this Fur Flower, A'tim ; where
is it?"

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Less than a day's trnil, ' answered
the Dog-Wolf.

"Find it for me, kind Brother,**
begged the Bull. "When one fright-
ens those of his own kind it is time to
try something.**

As they plodded through the forest,
A*tim muttered: "Now I shall surely
have this vain old Bull. The Death
Coulee is close to Pprcupine Water, and
that is not far. Shag shall eat of the
Death Flower, which I have called the
Fur Flower, to improve his appearance;
and when he is dead I will eat of him
to improve mine.**

A three hours* tramp and they came
to a little valley rich in bright yellow
grass, topped by a stately plant that nod-
ded and rustled in the wind as its many
seed pods swayed like strings of dark
pearls. It was the Monkshood, the

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The Outcasts

deadly aconite, which, when the sum-
mer was young, hung its helmet flower
in a shimmering veil of blue over the
sweet grass of the Death Valley — the
valley known of all animals as the Cou-
lee of the Long Rest, for he who
browsed there found his limbs bound in
the steel cords of death.

"There," said A'tim, nodding his
head at the bronze gold of the many
Monkshood, « there is the Fur Flower.
It will be dry eating now, being of a
season's age, but in the early feed-time
it is sweet and tender. While you eat
of it I shall rest here.**

A strong rustling of grass almost at
their heels caused the Dog-Wolf to
spring to his feet in alarm.

"Eu-h-h, eu-h-h! here is the ac-
cursed Cow again. Where in the name

of Forest Fools have you come from

104

The Outcasts

why do you follow us?" exclaimed
A'tim.

" It is the way of my kind," she re-
pUed, « to follow a Herd Leader; there
is no harm in that."

Into the big, sleepy eyes of Shag crept
a pleased look.

"Where go you. Great Bull?" she
asked.

•* To eat of this Fur Flower my kind
Brother, A'tim, has told me will bring
backmycoat; a soft, silky coat it was, too."

"Eat of that— that which is the
Death Grass growing in the Valley of
the Long Rest ! You must wish to die ;
our Herd Leader, who was even of your
size. Great Bull, ate of it, and died like
a stricken Calf."

" What is this?" demanded Shag, his
big, honest eyes turned on A'tim with
a wondering look of unbelief.

105

The Outcasts

" A lie," quoth A'tim ; " the Cow is
full of a stupid duplicity : perhaps she
even killed this Herd Leader by some
trick, and blames it on the innocent
Fur Flower. Does it look like a poi-
son herb. Wise Bull ? Is it like the
scraggy Loco Plant of the South Ranges?
Has it not the beautiful blossom of a
good herb ? Would Wie-sah-ke-chack,
who is wise, put such a tempting coat
on a death plant?**

Shag looked puzzled. Why should
A*tim wish him to eat of a Death
Flower ; and yet, there was the graze of
the Wolfs fang on his thigh that time
they came up out of La Biche River.
That surely had the full flavor of treach-
ery about it. His ponderous mind
worked slowly over the tortuous puzzle.

"I am a stranger here,*' he said,
" and know little of these herbs, but

io6

The Outcasts

this Dog-Wolf, who is also an Outcast
like myself, has trailed from the South-
land with me, and we have been even
as Brothers. Thinking perhaps that my
rough coat was not so fine as it once
was, I listened to the speech of this
Dog-Wolf to the end that this blue^^.
flowered herb will cause the soft, beau-
tiful hair to grow again."

" It is the Death Flower," declared
the Cow with sententious persistence ;
" and this Outcast Wolf is a traitor, for
if he is from the Northland he also
knows that, even as in the Southland
they know the Loco Plant."

A*tim slunk back nervously and
watched Shag with wary caution.

" Do you believe this lie. Shag, my
dear Friend? Ghur-r-r-ah ! do you
think I would do such a thing ? This
lone Cow, who is also an Outcast be-

107

The Outcasts

cause of some wrong thing, must be
locoed (mad)— even as every Herd has
one such."

" I am wise enough not to eat of the
Death Flower, by the knowledge of our
kind. But you can prove all this, Herd
Leader — let the Dog-Wolf eat of this
medicine plant, if it be harmless."

This clever idea pleased the Bull
mightily. "Y^s, A'tim," he cried;
" the Cow, who is but a Buffalo, and, of
course, has not the great Wolf wisdom,
ma) be mistaken. You who are an
eater of grasses when you are ill, eat of
this Fur Flower, as you name it ; then
also I will eat in great faith — after a
little," he added in an undertone.

A*tim walked backward a few paces
hesitatingly, and, looking wondrous hurt,
said in a deprecating voice : " Ghur-r-rh,
eu-h-h I I have been a friend to you,

io8

The Outcasts

Lone Bull, even a Brother in solitude ;
and now at the word of a stranger, a
silly Cow, who having done some wrong
has been outcasted from her Herd, you
lose ^th in me, and treat me as a trai-
tor."

Still farther into the tangle of birch
and poplar he backed, saying: "Of
course, I couldn't expect you to take
my part against a sleek-hided Buffalo
Cow."

With a sudden spring he turned, and
barked derisively as he loped through
the forest: "Good-by, bald-hided old
Bull ; I will bring harm to you because
of this."

" I think you were just in time," said
Shag to the Cow; "that Dog-Wolf
meant my death."

Then Shag learned from the Buffalo
Cow that she was one of a Herd of six,

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The Outcasts

and that the Herd was not very far
away; that they were unguarded be-
cause of the loss rf their Leader through
the Death Flower, even as she had said.
Willingly Shag went with her, making
many protestations as to his disreputable
appearance, and the unfitness of his well-
worn stub-horns to battle for them; but
he went.

A TIM slunk through the forest,
his lean body filled with notli-
ing but the rage of disappointed
appetite. " Tm starving ! " he gasped;
"Starving! I must have something to
cat. By the feast that is in a dead
Buffalo! if that evil-minded Cow had
also eaten of the Death Flower when
her Bull did, as she says, I should now
be closer friend than ever with old
Shag— Shag, the Fool."

A large dead cottonwood, rotted to
the heart till its flesh was like red earth
mould, lay across his path like an un-
buried Redskin. "Should be Grub

III

The Outcasts

Worms here," muttered A'tim, snif-
fing at the moss shroud which clothed
the tree corpse. In famine haste he
tore with strong claws at the crumb-
ling mass. One, two, three large
Grubs, full of a white fat, twisted and
squirmed at their rude awakening; the
Dog -Wolf swallowed them greedily.
"Eu-h-h! Hi,yi! Such a tiny mor-
sel," he whined plaintively; "they but
give life to the limine pains which
were all but dead through starvation.
Wait, you, fool Bull — I'll crack your
ribs with my strong teeth yet! But
smaU as the Grubs are there should
be more."

With swift diligence A'tim exca-
vated, grumblingly, until his gaunt form
was hsdf buried in the hole.

Three Gray Shadows were creeping
in stealthy silence upon his flank ; owing

112

The Out casts

to his anxious work A'tim was oblivious
to the approaching trouble.

"E-e-yah! " and quick as a slipping
sound that fluttered his ear A'tim wm
up on the dead Cottonwood, only to find
himself peering into the lurid eyes of a
huge Wolf.

Like war stars, four other balls of light
gleamed at him from a close crescent.
The Outcast was clever. Surely this
was a case for diplomacy; he had no
desire to feed three hungry Wolves with
his thin carcass.

" You startled me. Brothers," he said,
grinning nervously.

" I did not mean to," replied the Pack
Leader; "my foot slipped on a wet

" Ye-e-s— just so," hesitated A'tim in
deprecating voice; "so fortunate^I
mean— Brothers, Tm sorry I can't oflfer

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you good eating— ^ere were only three
Grubi "

" Oh, don't mention it I " exclaimed
the Wolf; "no doubt we shall find
something for dinner presently — don't
you think so, children ? " he asked, turn-
ing to the others.

" I was going to say," recommenced
the Outcast, "thdt I could not ask you
to eat just here, but I was actually
on my way to invite you to a big feed-
mg."

The Timber Wolf bared his fimgs in
^n of derisive unbelief His com-
rades blinked at one another solemnly.
«« Was there ever such a liar ?"

A'tim coughed nervously and con-
tinued his politic address. " I heard your
powerful bay. Pack Leader, hours ago,
as I was attending to a little trailing
Blatter I had on hand, and resolved to

114

The Outcasts

invite you to the Kill when I had located
the trailed one."

"That's good news," answered the
Wolf, " for we are wondrous hungry,"
and he edged closer to the Outcast.

A'tim shrank into a very small parcel-
on the log. " I, too, have been sick for
the need of food. I have starved, actually
starved, for a moon ; why, I am nothing
but skin and bone ; the smallest creat-
ure, even a weasel, would find it diffi-
cult to fill his stomach from my lean
ribs. Besides, I have eaten ofiTa plague-
stricken Rabbit but a day since, and
my blood is on fire — though there's not
much of it, to be sure. I'm filled with
the accursed plague poison — I believe
there's enough of it in my poor, thin
body to bring to their death a whole
Wolf Pack."

« That's serious I " exclaimed the Gray

IIS

Thfi Out casts

Wolf; "but you'd die anyway, so it
doesn't matter— I mean, never mind
about that just now. Gh-u-r-r-h ! what
of this great kill?"

" Well, Brother Wolves "

••Brother WohesV' questioned the
other with a sneer-tinge in his gruff
voice; "thou art overthick in the
shoulder for a Wolf."

« I never saw ears like yours on a
Wolf, Newcomer," said one of the
youngsters; "they are short and round
like those of the Huskie Dog we ate
Is not that so?" he asked, turning to the
Leader.

"Yes, indeed; we ate him, I'm
ashamed to say—for Dog meat is horri-
ble—but what is one to do when there's
naught else in the Boundaries?"

A'tim shuddered; their merciless eyes
gleamed with the ferocity of famine.

116

The Outcasts

Neither his strength nor his speed,
which had so often stood him in good
stead, would avail him this time; noth-
ing but his half-breed duplicity — ^Wolf
cunning and Dog wisdom.

"But L am a Wolf," he reiterated;
«' else why should I seek your company
at my Kill ? "

" We were easily found," sneered the
Wolf; "we did not take much calling,
did we ? Knowing your desire for our
fellowship, we kept you not waiting —
E-a-ah, Lone Dog? But where hunts
the Pack that carry their tails curled
over their backs like Train Dogs ? "

**It*s because of my nervousness-^
you startled me," pleaded A'tim ; " also
my seat is narrow."

"And the big, round feet. Lone Dog?
They leave not a Wolf track. And
you're broad in the loin, and heavy in

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the jowl, and short in the leg— a Dog,
a Hermit Dog, by the knowledge that
has come to me of age."

" Tm a Wolf from the Southland,"
maintained A'tim. «* We shape differ-
ent there. Our meat is the flesh of
Buffalo, and our Kill is because of
strength, and not speed— therefore we
are of a strong build. You are of the
Northland ; swift as the wind, and long
running. Great Wolf-you and your
beautiful Sons— yet was I eager for your
company at this Kill, which has taken
me days to arrange.**

" Buh-h, buh-ha ! his great Kill ! and
here is the killer slaying fierce, white
Wood Grubs— but never mind; what
of the Kill, Lone Dog?*'

"What say you to a Buffalo— a fat
young Bull?*' asked A'tim, heaving a
sigh of relief; "would not that be a

ii8

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dinner fit for a great Pack Leader, like
yourself? "

"A Buffalo?" queried the Wolf in-
credulously. " I have heard of such in
these forests, but I come from the North,
and have never seen them — ^have vire-
Sons?"

"Never," they answered, closing in
on A'tim.

" Even to-day I trailed one, and was
on my way to ask you to the Kill, as is
the way of the Wo*.- kind. I am no
Dog, to kill and eat in secret."

"It's truly noble to feed your
friends," declared the Wolf He snap-
ped viciously at A'tim's throat with
fang-lined jaws. The Dog-Wolf jumped
back nervously.

"Wait, Brothers," he pleaded ; "you
do not believe me, I see — ^let us go to-
gether, and if I do not show you this

119

The Outcasts

Buffalo, waiting for the Kill, then—"
"Yes, then—" sneered the Wolf;
"if you foil to show us this Buffalo,
tJ*cn — " He grinned diabolically in
A'tim's face.

" E-e-u-h, I know," exclaimed the
Dog-Wolf, stepping down gingerly
from the log. " You may keep close;
I will show yod that I have spoken no
lie."

Together, one Wolf on either side
of A*tim and one behind, they glided
along his back trail till they came to
the scene of his caustic 4rewell to
Shag. Suddenly the Pack Leader
stopped, buried his nose in a hoof hole
and sniffed with discriminating intent-
ness.

" If-if-if-fh-h ! By my scent, 'tis not
Mooswa — ^nor Caribou. What say you,
sons? Perhaps it is the Buffalo of which

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The Outcasts

the Lone Dog speaks. Phew-yi, hi !
Another trail call. Here are two of
these big-footed creatures, be they Buf-
61o, or what— you spoke of but one.
Lone Dog; Wolves do not tackle
Herd."

•• Only a silly Cow," answered A'tim.
"She will flee at the first blood cry."

The big Wolf softened a trifle.
Surely here was prospect of a mighty
Kill. There would be much flesh feed-
ing and blood drinking till they were
gorged. And the Lone Dog would
keep. When the Bufialo were eaten,
then— He look grimly at A'tim's at-
tenuated form. "Not much to tempt
one after the sweet meat of a Grass
Feeder," he muttered disconsolately.
" How shaU we make the Kill, Lone
Dog ? " he asked.
" When we have trailed them down

121

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watch till they feed apart and stampede
the Cow with a fierce rush full of much
cry ; then all on the Bull — ^two in front,
to put them at bay, and two behind
with sharp teeth for the hamstring.
That will lay him helpless as a new
Calf."

**Thou art a Leader of Sorts, Lone
Dog ; but why not the Cow first ? It's
an easier task, and better eating."

*<Ah, my Brothers, I see you have
never nm the Kings of the Prairie.
While you were busy with the Cow,
what think you the Bull would be do-
ing — brushing his mane with a wet
tongue? His strong horns, stronger
than Wolf tusks, would be ripping your
ribs, and the weight of his huge fore-
head would be breaking your backs —
flat as a fallen leaf he would crush you.
No, no; by my knowledge of these

122

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things, first the Bull— after, the Cow
will be easy."

All this logic, sound though it
seemed, was born of A'tim's desire for
revenge upon old Shag for refusing to
be murdered.

** Well, it is your Run and your Kill,
and to the Trailer the say of the Kill is
our Law," answered the Wolf; ** lead us
to the eating, and make haste lest we
get too hungry."

But A'tim had started ere the Wolf
had finished his implied threat. Nose
to ground, and tail almost as straight
as a true Wolfs, he raced through the
ghost forms of silent poplars, sheared
by the autumn winds of their gold-leaf
mantle. Over wooded upland, and
through lowland cradling the treacher-
ous muskeg, spruce-shielded anchnoss-
bedded, he followed the trail of old

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Shag and his Cow mate. Ever at hit
flank, one on either side, sped the young
Wolves, and, lapping their quarters,
loped in easy stride their giant Sire. In
the Dog-Wolfs heart were revenge and
the prospect of much eating, and the
diplomacy that was to save his life.

''Thisstrangft Run is surely from the
hand of Wie-sah-ke-chack," muttered
the Pack Leader; «*and of the end I
have no knowledge, but, by the mem-
ory of my long fast, there will be food
at the end of it for me and the Pups."

Through a black cemetery of fire-
killed trees, the charred limbs cracking
harshly under their eager feet, they
swept. Suddenly the trail kinked
sharply to the right, and the Dog-Wolf,
swift-rushing, overshot it. " E-u-h ! at
feult," he muttered. «' Some trick of
the fool Cow's." Back and forth, back

124

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tnd forth like Setters the four Killers
scurried.

"H-o-o-ohl here away!" cried
A'tim, picking it up; and on again
galloped the Gray Hunters.

At Towatano Cr«ek the trail went
into the air; at least it was no longer
of the earth. Straight to the south
bank it had led, but on the north there
WM nothing ; nothing but the hoot of
a frightened Arctic Owl that swirled off
into the forest because of their impetu-
ous blood cry.

"They are not wet to their death "
cried the Wolf, «for here is litde
water."

It was as though the Bisons had
crawled into a cave, only there was no

burrow in sight^nothing. A'tim was
confused.

"Surely thou art a Dog," cried the

125

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Wolf diidainfully ; *< they have gone up
the water, or they have gone down the
water. This it no young Bull we fol-
low, for he hat thewitdom which comet
with age; that, or thit Cow hat the
duplicity of a Mother guarding her
Calf."

" I will tearch up, and do you teek
down," taid A'tim.

"Not to," replied the Wolf; "we
will ttay here together while my Pupt
pick up the trail, be it up or down."

Very clote to A'tim the huge Wolf
tat while hit two Sont tearched the op-
potite bank for the coming out of Shag.
Soon a " Hi, yi — ^hc, he, he-voh-ooh ! "
came floating ditmally up the tortuout
stretch of winding stream. "Come;
they have found it," said the Wolf.

On again, £uterand faster, flitted the
Gray Shadows in the waning of the day.

126

The O utcasts

All vtin hid been theprecautioiwof the
Cow; the twisting tnd doubling, and
wilking in the water to kill the scent—
all in vain. Nothing would turn these
blood-thirsters from the trail.

•• Hurry a Uttle." panted the Wolf
from behind. "Gallop, Lone Dog;
gaDop, brave Pups; the sc^nt grows
•trong, and we need light for our
work."

A'tim stretched his thin limbs in
eager chase; at his shoulder now raced
the Wolf Pups ; the blood fever crept
stronger and stronger into the hot hearts
of the Gray Runners. Short yelps of
hungry exultation broke from their dry
throats; it was like the tolling of a
death bell ; first one and then the other,
"Oo-oo-ooh-oohl" The dry leaved
scurried under their feet, swirled up by
the wind from their rushing bodies.

The Outcasts

Poplar bluff, and jack-pine knoll,
and spruce thicket, and open patch of
rosebush-matted plain flitted by like the
tide of a landscape through which an
express speeds.

Why had this silly Cow and effete
old Bull traveled iso far? A'tim won-
dered. WoulcJ, they never overtake
them?

' i

Suddenly a vibrating bellow echoed
through the forest and halted the Wolf
Runneu.

"It's the Bull!" cried A'tim
triumphantly. "Now, Brothers, we
shall feast. Have I not spoken the
truth?"

On again sped the four Killers — the
four that were eager of blood; on
through the thicket, and with sudden-
ness out upon a plain that had been
fire-swept years before-— a plain wide,

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The Outcasts

and void of poplar, or spruce, or cotton-
wood. Only the grass plain, and on
the plain seven Buffalo; a waiting cres-
cent of seven huge heads lined in sym-
metrical defense; a little in front old
Shag, and behind, shoulder to shoulder,
the others. With a cry of diamay,
A'tim stopped.

" A trick— a trap ! " yelped the Wolf.

"I did not know of these,*' whined
A'tim; "but it is nothing. If we
charge boldly they will stampede."
" They will fight," answered the Wolf.
" No charge will break a Wolf Pack,
and it will be that way with these. I
think."

'I The Buffalo are different." lied
A'tim. He knew better, but it was his
only hope. Well he knew that if there
were no attack his New Comrades would
surely eat him. In the battle many

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The Outcasts

things might come to pass, his Dog wis-
dom said; the Wolves might be killed,
or prodded full of a sufficiency of fight;
the Buflfalo might stampede, being new
to Shag's leadership ; or, when the com-
bat was heavy, he could steal away if he
saw it going against them. Also his de-
sire for revenge, on Shag was a potent
factor.

«* They will surely break if we charge
with strength," he declared: "they are
Cows, having no Calves to guard, and
each will think only of her own safety
when she hears your fierce cry. Pack
Leader. I, who have lived upon Buffalo
in the South, know this. Why should
I Buy this, being also in the fight, if it
were not true. Come, Brothers, even
now they are afraid."

The Bufiy o Cows were stamping the
young-turfed prairie with nervous feet.

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The Outcasts

Shag was throwing clouds of dust over
his lowered head, and kinking his
tufted tail in battle anger.

"Yes, he will fight," declared A'tim,
as Shag snorted and shook his head de-
fiantly; "he will fight, but that will
save much running, for we shall soon
bring him down.**

The Wolf Leader weighed the mat-
ter with a gravity born of his long fast.
Certainly it appeared worth a battle.
If they could but make one Kill, what
a feast it would be ! Never had he seen
Grass Feeders of this bulk. Why
fthould he and his Sons, who were
strong fighters, full of the Wolf cun-
ning, dread these Bufl=alo who had
nothing but horns for defense! No
fear of the fierce-cutting hoof thrust,
such as Mooswa gavel And he was
hungry. He looked at the Dog-Wolf

«3«

The Outcasts

with the eye of an epicure ; what misera-
ble eating his thin carcass would make.
Much better this fight for a Buffalo.

"We will charge," he said. "All
at the Bull ! "

With short, gasping yelps the three
Wolves and the Mongrel dashed at the
Herd. The crescent of horned heads
swayed a little irresolutely ; but Shag,
wise old Leader, Leader of mighty
Herds, Patrician of a thousand kine,
who had stood against the fierce bliz-
zard, and the Foothill Wolves that
came down in mighty Packs seeking
the calves that were in his charge, — ^he
who had fought the young Bulls grow-
ing into their strength, and kept them
in subjection until his horns were worn
to stubs and of no avail ; whose heart,
once aroused, was strong, and knew not
of defeat until it came: this dauntless

13a

The Outcasts

Monarch of the plain stood firm. What
were four Wolves to him ! Let them
come.

" This is a Leader ! " said the six
Cows. "Surely here is no danger."

•« No danger," repeated Shag, hearing
their voices; "stand close and there is
no danger."

« Oo-oo-oo-ah, wah, wah, wah!"
howled the Wolves and barked the
Dog-Wolf, as almost to the stockade
of heavy heads they rushed.

"Circle, Brothers, circle," called the
big Wolf, as he swerved to the right,
seeking to turn the flank of the Cow
line. Like trained soldiers the Bufl^lo
crescent swung as the Wolves swung.
Shag always a little in fi-ont. With an
angry snarl the Leader dashed at the
Buffalo; his two Sons were at his
shoulder.

«33

The Outcasts

*«The Bull! the BuUI" yelped
A'tim, crouching to steal under the giant
head, and lay him by the flank.

Famine-braved, the Wolves fought
and snapped, and snarled the Kill cry.
Crazed beyond cowardice by the smell
of their own blood, the Cows fenced
and thrust, and stood one against the
other — thesharp horns ripped like skin-
ning-knives .

"Ee-e-yah! if I could but do it!"
snarled the great Wolf. Ah ! he had
her — ^by the nose! Down to her
knees, dragged by the Wolf, came the
Cow that had turned Shag from the
Death Flower.

" Yah, yah, yah ! " snarled the Wolf
joyously through his set teeth, as the
Cow bellowed loud in her agony of
terror.

Then something like the fidling of a

»34

The Outcasts

great forest was heard, and the Bufialo
Bull descended upon the Big Wolf and
blotted him out from the light of the
world. It was not a question of horns
at all; it was simply a great weight
like an avalanche of rock crushing him
into the herbed plain. His grim jaws
relaxed their hold ; from ears and nos-
trils flowed his mighty strength in a red
stream.

Even as Shag charged the Wolf,
A'tim had reached for the Cow*s flank !
Ah I here was his chance. The Bull's
fat throat beckoned to him from within
easy reach. Wah, for his revenge!
E-e-uh, for the throat grip — ^the throat-
cutting hold !

Eagerly, wide-jawed he sprang at the
Brother Outcast — and missed.

The carnage had sent Shag's life
back a score of years ; the battle heat

»35

The Outcasts

wtrmcd his old blood until it couiied
with the fire of fighting youth; he
was a young Bull again, full of the
glorious supple strength that had been
his as chief gladiator of all the prairie
arena : that was why A'tim fell short
as he reached for the death hold.

With a deft twist Shag had the Dog-
Wolf pinned to 'the earth between the
worn old horns.

" Now, traitor," he grunted.
"Spare me," pleaded A'tim; "I,
who am not of your kind, slept by your
ttde, and guided you to this land where
you have a Hwd. I was forced to this
by the Wolves— they threatened to eat
me. Spare me. Great Bull; I came to
warn you, but the Wolves followed fast."
Shag hesitated. One crunch from his
broad forehead, one little push— so, and
the Dog-Wolf, who was A'tim, would—

'36

The Outcasts

"Spare me. Shag — let me go/'
pleaded the mongrel again ; <* I brought
you to this Herd — ^to this Northland
which is good. Were we not Outcast
Brothers together ? "

Again Shag hesiuted. Why notf
Was he not a Buflalo Bull, a Leader of
Herds? Did his kind ever do aught
for revenge — ^kill except in defense of
their own lives? And was not this
Dog-Wolf lying helpless between his
horns beyond aU chance of doing him
injury — ^this Mongrel that had been u
a Brother to him when they were Out-
casts ? Also the Wolves were dead-
trampled into silence.

"Thou art a traitor, and a great liar,
A'tim,** said the Bull, rising, "but you
may go because you are an Outcast, and
because I also was one."

And that was the beginning of the

137

mm^m'mmin ■■ ii n ii n - ■ i

The Outcasts

Herd of the Wood Biifftlo, that ere big
and ttrong tnd betudful, in the spruce
foreits of the Athabaica Lake.

•
•

t
1-

7^.