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The Thundering Herd
by
Zane Grey



CHAPTER I


Autumn winds had long waved the grass in the vast upland valley and
the breath of the north had tinged the meandering lines of trees
along the river bottoms.  Gold and purple, and a flame of fire,
shone brightly in the morning sunlight.

Birds and beasts of that wild open northland felt stir in them the
instinct to move toward the south.  The honk of wild geese floated
down upon the solitudes and swift flocks of these heralds of winter
sped by, sharply outlined against the blue sky.

High upon the western rampart of that valley perched an eagle,
watching from his lonely crag.  His telescopic eye ranged afar.
Beneath him on the endless slope and boundless floor of the valley,
moved a black mass, creeping with snail-like slowness toward the
south.  It seemed as long as the valley and as wide.  It reached to
the dim purple distances and disappeared there.  The densest part
covered the center of the valley, from which ran wide straggling
arms, like rivers narrowing toward their sources in the hills.
Patches of gray grass, dotted with gold, shone here and there
against the black background.  Always the dark moving streams and
blots seemed encroaching upon these patches of grass.  They spread
over them and covered them.  Then other open spaces appeared at
different points.  How slow the change!  Yet there was a definite
movement.

This black mass was alive.  The eagle was gazing down upon leagues
and leagues of buffalo.  Acres of buffalo, miles of buffalo,
millions of buffalo!  The shaggy, irregular, ragged herd had no
end.  It dominated slopes, and bottomlands, and the hazy reaches
beyond.

The vision of the eagle was an organ for self-preservation, not
capable of appreciating the beauty and sublimity of the earth and
its myriads of wild creatures.  Yet with piercing eye the eagle
watched from his lonely crag.  Boundless void, with its moving
coverlet of black, the wide space of sky keen with its cool wind--
valley of leagues, with its living heritage of a million years!
Wild, primitive, grand was the scene.  It was eloquent of the past.
The future stretched away like the dim, strange, unknown purple
distances, with an intimation of tragedy.  But the hour was one of
natural fruition, wild life in the open, with the sun like an eye
of the Creator, shining over the land.  Peace, silence, solitude
attended the eagle in his vigil.

Yet a brooding sadness, like an invisible mantle, lay over the
valley.  Was it the dreamy, drowsy spell of autumn?  Was it the
pervading spirit of a dying season, reluctant to face the rigor of
snow and ice?  The fact was that autumn lingered, and nature
brooded over some mystery, some problem, some blunder.  Life was
sweet, strong--scented on the wind, but there was death lurking
somewhere, perhaps in the purple shadow of distance to the
southward.  The morning was bright, golden, glorious, yet it did
not wait, and night was coming.  So there was more than the
melancholy languor of autumn in the still air.  A mighty Being
seemed breathing there, invisible and infinite, all-encompassing.
It kept its secret.

Suddenly the eagle plunged like a thunderbolt from his crag and
shot down and down, at last to spread his closed wings, and sail
slowly and majestically round and round, over an open grassy patch
encircled by buffalo.

In this spot, well toward the center and front of the vast herd,
appeared about to be enacted a battle between a monarch and his
latest rival for supremacy.

The huge leader, shaggy, brown, ragged, was not a creature of
beauty, but he was magnificent.  He had twice the bulk of an ox,
and stood as high as a horse.  His massive head, with the long
shaggy hair matted with burrs, was held low, muzzle almost to the
ground, showing the big curved short horns widely separated.  Eyes
of dark fire blazed from beneath the shaggy locks.  His great back
slowly arched and his short tufted tail rose stiffly erect.  A
hoarse rumble issued from the cavern of his chest--a roar at the
brazen effrontery of this young bull that dared to face him.

Many and many had been the battles of this old monarch.  For years
he had reigned, so many that he had forgotten the instinct of his
youth, when he, like the rival before him, had bearded the king of
the buffaloes.  He had to fight again, in obedience to that law
which respected only the survival of the fittest.

The bull that had challenged the king to battle was also
magnificent.  He too lowered his huge head, and with short
prodigious strokes he pawed tufts of grass and heaps of earth up
into the air.  His color was a glossy seal brown and he did not
have the ragged, worn appearance of the monarch.  His shaggy hair
hung thick and woolly from head and shoulders and knees.  Great
rippling muscles swelled on his flanks as he pawed and moved round
his enemy.  He meant to attack.  He shone resplendent.  He seemed
the epitome of animal vigor and spirit.  The bawl with which he
answered the roar of the monarch rang clear and hard, like a blast.
He possessed something that the old warrior had lost.  He had
beauty and youth.

The surrounding buffalo did not appear concerned over this
impending battle.  They were aware of it, for they would raise
their shaggy heads from the grass and gaze a moment at the king and
his jealous aspirant.  Then they would return to their feeding.  It
was noticeable, however, that the circle did not narrow; if
anything, it gradually widened.

The king did not wait for his foe to begin the struggle.  He
charged.  His dash was incredibly fast for so heavy a beast and his
momentum tremendous.  Square against the lowered head of the young
bull he struck.  The shock sent forth a sodden crash.  The bull
staggered under the impact.  His whole bulk shook.  Then he was
lifted, head up, forefeet off the ground, higher, and with grinding
clash of horns he was hurled heavily upon his back.

Under the great force of that charge the old monarch went to his
knees, and the advantage which might have been his was lost.  He
heaved in his rage.

Nimbly the young bull rolled over and bounded to his feet, unhurt.
Nature had by this time developed him to a perfect resisting force.
His front was all bone, covered by matted hair.  Swifter than a
horse, as quick as a cat, he launched his bulk at his antagonist,
and hit him with a shock no less terrific than the one that had
opened the battle.  But the old warrior received it as if he had
been a great oak rooted in the earth.

Then with heads pounding and horns grinding, these beasts,
relentless as nature itself, settled down to the wonderful and
incredible battle of buffalo bulls.  Bent and bowed, always head to
head, they performed prodigious feats of ramming and butting, and
endeavoring to give each other a fatal thrust with horn.

But under that heavy mat of wool was skin over an inch thick and
tougher than hardened leather.  These bulls were made to fight.
They had extraordinary lung capacity and very large nostrils.
Their endurance was as remarkable as their physical structure.

In a cloud of dust they plowed up the prairie, driving the grazing
buffalo back and forth, and covering acres of ground in their
struggle.  The crash of heads and rattle of horns gradually
diminished in vigor of sound, indicating that the speed and
strength of the rivals were wearing down.  Not so their ferocity
and courage!  It was a battle to death or complete vanquishment.
In time the dust cloud blew away on the wind, and then the bulls
could be seen in action less strenuous but still savage.

The old monarch was near the end of his last battle.  His race was
run.  Torn and dirt-covered and bloody, he backed before the
onslaughts of his foe.  His lungs, like great bellows, sent out
gasps that were as well utterances of defeat.  He could not
withstand the relentless young bull.  Age must go down.  He was
pushed to his knees and almost bowled over.  Recovering, he wearily
fronted that huge battering black head, and then was shoved to his
haunches.  Again, narrowly, he escaped the following lunge.  That
was the moment of defeat.  He was beaten.  The instinct for life
took the place of the instinct for supremacy.  Backward, step by
step, he went, always facing the bellowing young conqueror.  There
came intervals when he was free of that lowered battering head; and
during the last of these he sheered away among the stragglers of
the herd, leaving the field to the victor.  The old monarch had
retired to the ranks and there was a new leader of the herd.

The eagle soared back to his lonely perch, there to clutch the crag
with his talons and sweep the valley with crystal eye.

Out to the front of the black mass of buffalo a whirlwind twisted
up a column of dust.  Funnel-shaped it rose, yellow and spreading,
into the air, while it raced across the valley.  That, or something
as natural, stirred a movement in the fore-ranks of buffalo.  All
at once the leaders broke into a run, heading south.  The movement,
and the growing pound of their hoofs, ran through the herd as
swiftly as a current.  Then, magically and wondrously, the whole
immense mass moved as if one spirit, one mind, dominated it.  The
throbbing pound of hoofs suddenly increased to a roar.  Dust began
to rise and blow back, like low clouds of yellow smoke, over the
acres, and then the miles of bobbing black backs.  The vast herd
seemed to become a sea in swift and accelerating action.

Soon a rising pall of dust shrouded the thousands of buffalo,
running under what seemed an obscure curtain.  The volume of sound
had swelled from rhythmic pound and beat to a mighty and appalling
roar.  Only the battlements of the upper air, assailed in storm by
the ripping of lightning, could send back such thunder as now rose
from the shaking earth.  But this was one long continuous roll.
The movement of buffalo in unison resembled a tidal wave and the
sound was that of an avalanche.  The ground trembled under the
thundering herd.

The eagle perched motionless on his crag, indifferent to the
rolling chaos beneath him.  The valley-wide cloud of dust floated
low down.  Time passed.  Halfway to the zenith rose the sun.  Then
gradually the tremor of the earth and the roar of hoofs diminished,
rolled, and died away.  The herd had passed.  On his lofty perch
the eagle slept, and the valley cleared of dust and movement.
Solitude, loneliness, and silence reigned at the solemn noontide.


It was spring of an era many years after the lone eagle had watched
the buffalo herd.

An upland prairie country rolled and waved down from snow-capped
Rocky Mountains to spread out into the immense eastern void.  Over
the bleached white grass had come a faint tinge of green.  The warm
sun had begun its renewal of the covering of the earth.  A flock of
wild geese, late on their annual pilgrimage, winged swift flight
toward the northland.  On the ridges elk grazed, and down in the
hollows, where murmuring streams rushed, clouded with the blue
color of melted snow, deer nibbled at the new tender shoots of
grass.

Below the uplands, where the plain began, herds of buffalo dotted
the patches and streaked the monotony of the gray vastness.
Leagues and leagues it spread, always darker for the increase of
buffalo, until all was a dense black that merged into the haze of
distance.

A river wended its curving way out across the plains, and in a
wooded bend an Indian encampment showed its white tepees, and red
blankets, and columns of blue smoke lazily rising.

Hidden in the brush along the river half-naked red men lay in wait
for the buffalo to come down to drink.  These hunters did not need
to sally forth for their game.  They had only to wait and choose
the meat and the hide that best served them for their simple needs.
They did not kill more than they could use.

Along the river bank, far as eye could see, the shaggy monsters
trooped down to drink.  Bulls and cows and calves came in endless
procession.  In some places, where the bank was steep, the thirsty
buffalo behind pushed the row ahead into the water, whence rose a
splashing mêlée.  The tawny calves, still too young to shed their
coats and turn the seal brown of their mothers, bawled lustily as
they were shoved into the river.

Near the encampment of the Indians, where trees and brush lined the
shore, the buffalo were more wary.  They liked the open.  But
stragglers came along, and the choicest of these fell prey to the
deadly arrows of the red men.  A shaggy young bull, sleek and
brown, superb in his approaching maturity, passed within range of
the chieftain of that hunting clan.  He rose from his covert, a
lean, dark Indian, tall and powerful of build, with intense face
and piercing eyes turned toward his quarry.  He bent a bow few
Indians could have drawn.  He bent it till the flint head of the
arrow touched his left hand.  Then he released the arrow.  Like a
glint of light it flashed and, striking the bull behind the
shoulder, buried half its length there.  The animal grunted.  He
made no violent movements.  He walked back as he had come, only
more and more slowly.  The chief followed him out to the edge of
the timber.  There other buffalo coming in saw both Indian and
wounded bull, but they only swerved aside.  The bull halted, and
heaving heavily, he plunged to his knees, and then rolled over on
his side.

After the hunters came the squaws, with their crude flint and bone
implements, to skin the buffalo and cut up the meat and pack it to
the encampment.

There the chief repaired to rest on his buffalo hide under a tree,
and to think the thoughts and dream the dreams of the warrior.
Beyond the white-peaked mountain range lived enemies of his, red
men of a hated tribe.  Other than remembrance of them he had no
concern.  His red gods could not tell him of the future.  The
paleface, who was to drive him and his people into the fastnesses
of the arid hills, was unknown and undreamed of.  Into his lofty
serene mind no thought flashed of a vanishing of the buffalo while
yet his descendants lived.  The buffalo were as many as the sands
of the river bottoms.  They had always been; they would always be.
The buffalo existed to furnish food, raiment, shelter for the red
man.

So the chief rested in his camp, watching beaver at work on the
river bank, as tame as were the buffalo.  Like these animals, he
and his tribe were happy and self-sufficient.  Only infrequent
battles with other tribes marred the serenity of their lives.
Always the endless herds were to be found, to the south or the
north.  This chief worshiped the sun, loved his people and the
wild, lonely land he believed was his; and if there was in his
tribe a brave who was liar or coward or thief, or a squaw who broke
the law, death was his or her portion.


A straggling band of white men wearily rode and tramped across the
great plains centuries before that wonderful level prairie was to
be divided into the Western states of America.

These white travelers were the Spanish explorers under the command
of the intrepid Coronado.  It was a large band.  Many of them rode
horses--Arabian horses of the purest breed, from which the Western
mustang was descended.  But most of them walked, wearing queer
apparel and armor not suitable to such arduous travel.  They
carried strange weapons.

Hardy, indomitable, and enduring, this first band of white men to
penetrate the great plains and the deserts of the South and West,
recorded for history something of their marvelous adventures and
terrible experiences and strange sights.

Many hundreds of leagues they traveled, according to their
historian, Castaneda, over tremendous plains and reaches of sand,
stark and level, and so barren of trees and stones that they
erected heaps of the ox dung they found, so that they could be
guided back by the way they had come.  They lost horses and men.

All the way across these great plains of grass and sand the
Spaniards encountered herds of crooked-back oxen, as many as there
were sheep in Spain.  But they saw no people with the crooked-back
cattle.  These weary and lost travelers, almost starved, found in
the oxen succor they so grievously needed.  Meat gave them strength
and courage to go on through obstacles none save crusaders could
have overcome.  Sometimes in this strange country it rained great
showers of hailstones as big as oranges; and these storms caused
many tears and injuries.

Castaneda wrote:


These oxen are the bigness and color of our bulls. . . .  They have
a great bunch of hair on their fore shoulders, and more on their
fore part than their hinder part, and it is like wool.  They have a
horse-mane upon their backbone, and much hair, and very long from
their knees downward.  They have great tufts of hair hanging down
their foreheads, and it seemeth they have beards because of the
great store of hair hanging down at their chins and throats.  The
males have very large tails, and a great knob or flock at the end,
so that in some respects they resemble the lion, and in some others
the camel.  They push with their horns; they run; they overtake and
kill a horse when they are in their rage and anger.  The horses
fled from them, either because of their deformed shape, or else
because they had never before seen them.  Finally it is a foul and
fierce beast of countenance and form of body.


Coronado and Castaneda, with their band of unquenchable spirits,
were the first white people to see the American buffalo.



CHAPTER II


All during Tom Doan's boyhood, before and through the stirring
years of the Rebellion, he had been slowly yielding to the call
that had made so many young men adventurers and pioneers in the
Southwest.

His home had not been a happy one, but as long as his mother lived
and his sisters remained unmarried he had stayed there, getting
what education there was available at the little Kansas village
school, and working hard on the farm.  When Kansas refused to
secede to the South at the beginning of the Rebellion, Tom's
father, who was a rebel, joined Quantrill's notorious band of
guerillas.  Tom's sisters were in sympathy with the South.  But Tom
and his mother held open leaning toward the North.  It was a
divided family.  Eventually the girls married and left home.  Tom's
mother did not long survive her husband, who was shot on one of
Quantrill's raids.

Tom outlived the sadness and bitterness of his youth, but they left
their mark upon him.  His loyalty to his mother had alone kept him
from the wildness of the time, and their poverty had made hard work
imperative.  After the war he drifted from place to place, always
farther and farther toward the unsettled country.  He had pioneer
blood in him, and in his mind he had settled the future.  He meant
to be a rancher, a tiller of the soil, a stockman and a breeder of
horses, for these things he loved.  Yet always there was in him the
urge to see the frontier, to be in the thick of wild life while he
was hunting and exploring for that wonderful land which would
content him.  Thus Tom Doan had in him a perfect blending of the
dual spirit that burned in the hearts of thousands of men, and
which eventually opened up the West to civilization.

Not, however, until the autumn of 1874 did he surrender to the
call.  The summer of that year had been a momentous one in the
Southwest.  Even in years of stress this one stood out as
remarkable, and the tales drifting up from the frontier had
thrilled Tom's heart.

A horde of buffalo-hunters, lured by the wild life and the
development of a commercial market for buffalo hides, had braved
the Indians in their haunts and started after the last great herds.
This had resulted in an Indian war.  The Cheyennes, Kiowas,
Arapahoes, and the Comanches had gone on the war-path.  A thousand
warriors of these tribes had made the memorable siege of a small
band of buffalo-hunters and their soldier escort, and after
repeated and persistent charges had been repulsed.  The tale of
this battle was singularly thrilling to Tom Doan.  Particularly had
the hunting of buffalo appealed to him.  Not that he had ever
hunted a buffalo, for in fact he had never seen one.  But stories
told him as a boy had fixed themselves in his mind, never to be
effaced.


Early spring found Tom Doan arriving at the outfitting post from
which an army of buffalo-hunters were preparing to leave for the
long haul to the south.

The atmosphere of this frontier fort and freighting station was new
to Tom, and affected him deeply.  The stir of youthful love of wild
tales was here revived.  At a step, almost, he had found himself on
the threshold of the frontier.  Huge freighting wagons, some with
six horses attached, and loaded with piles and bales of green
buffalo hides, lumbered in from the level prairie land.  The wide
main street of the town presented a continual procession of men and
women, mostly in rough garb of travel, and all intent on the
mysterious something that seemed to be in the air.  There was a
plentiful sprinkling of soldiers, and pale-faced, frock-coated
gamblers, and many stylishly dressed women who had a too friendly
look, Tom thought.  There were places of amusement, saloons and
dance halls, that Tom found a peep into sufficient.  Dust lay
inches deep in the street, and the horses passing along continually
raised clouds of it.

The camp on the outskirts of this town soon drew Tom.  Here, ranged
all around, it appeared, were the outfits of the buffalo-hunters,
getting ready to travel south.  Tom meant to cast his lot with one
of them, but the tales he had heard about the character of some of
these outfits made him decide to be careful.  According to rumor
some of them were as bad as the Comanches.

The first man Tom accosted was a tall, rugged, bronzed Westerner,
with a stubby red beard on his lean face.  He was encamped under a
cottonwood, just bursting into green, and on the moment was busy
jacking up the hind wheel of his huge canvas-covered wagon.

"I'll give you a lift," offered Tom, and with one heave he raised
the rear end of the wagon.

"Wal!" ejaculated the Westerner, as he rapidly worked up his jack
to meet the discrepancy occasioned by Tom's lift.  "Reckon you're
husky, stranger.  Much obliged."

Tom helped him complete the job of greasing the wagon wheels and
then asked him if he were a buffalo-hunter.

"I am thet," he replied.  "An' what're you?"

"I've come to join one of the outfits.  Are there really good wages
to be made?"

"Wal, you are new heahaboots," returned the other, grinning.  "My
early fall hunt netted me five hundred dollars.  Late fall then I
made four hundred.  An' this winter I hunted down on the Brazos,
cleanin' up six hundred an' eighty."

Tom was amazed and excited over this specific information, direct
from the hunting grounds.

"Why, that's wonderful!" he replied.  "A fellow can make enough to
buy and stock a ranch.  Did you have a helper?"

"Shore--my two boys, an' I paid them wages."

"How much?" inquired Tom.

"Twenty-five a month.  Are you lookin' fer a job?" rejoined the
Westerner, with an appreciative glance at Tom's broad shoulders.

"Yes, but not for such wages as that.  I'd like to go in for
myself."

"It's the way to do, if you can buy your own outfit."

Upon inquiry Tom found that outfits were high, and with his small
savings he could hardly hope to purchase even an interest in one.
It would be necessary for him to hire out to the best advantage,
and save his earnings toward buying horses, wagon, and equipment
for himself.  Nevertheless, opportunity seemed indeed knocking at
his door.  The rewards of buffalo-hunting, as set forth by the
Westerner, were great enough to fire the blood of any young man.
Tom experienced a sudden lift of his heart; a new and strong tide
surged through him.

At the end of the road Tom came to a small grove of cottonwoods,
just beyond the edge of the town; and here he caught the gleam of
more canvas-covered vehicles.  He found three outfits camped there,
apart from one another, and the largest one was composed of several
wagons.  A camp fire was burning.  The smell of wood smoke assailed
Tom's nostrils with more than pleasurable sense.  It brought
pictures of wild places and camp by lonely streams.  A sturdy woman
was bending over a washtub.  Tom caught a glimpse of a girl's
rather comely face peering out of the front of a wagon.  Two young
men were engaged at shoeing a horse.  Under a cottonwood two men
sat on a roll of bedding.

As Tom entered the grove one of the men rose to a lofty stature and
showed himself to be built in proportion.  He appeared past middle
age, but was well preserved and possessed a bearded, jovial face,
with frank blue eyes that fastened curiously upon Tom.  The other
man had remarkable features--sharp, hard, stern, set like a rock.
Down his lean brown cheeks ran deep furrows and his eyes seemed
narrowed inside wrinkled folds.  They were gray eyes, light and
singularly piercing.

Tom had an impression that this was a real plainsman.  The giant
seemed a man of tremendous force.  Quick to form his likes or
dislikes, Tom lost no time here in declaring himself.

"My name's Tom Doan," he said.  "I want a job with a buffalo-
hunter's outfit."

"Glad to meet you.  I'm Clark Hudnall, an' this is my friend, Jude
Pilchuck," replied the giant.

Whereupon both men shook hands with Tom and showed the interest
common to the time and place.  Hudnall's glance was a frank
consideration of Tom's stalwart form and beardless face.
Pilchuck's was a keen scrutiny associated with memory.

"Doan.  Was your father Bill Doan, who rode with Quantrill?" he
inquired.

"Yes--he was," returned Tom, somewhat disconcerted by this
unexpected query.

"I knew your father.  You favor him, only you're lighter
complexioned.  He was a hard rider and a hard shooter. . . .  You
were a boy when he got--"

"I was fifteen," said Tom, as the other hesitated.

"Were you on your dad's side?" asked Hudnall, curiously.

"No.  I was for the North," returned Tom.

"Well, well, them days were tough," sighed Hudnall, as if he
remembered trials of his own.  Then he quickened with interest.
"We need a man an' I like your looks.  Have you any hankerin' for
red liquor?"

"No."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"Ever hunt buffalo?"

"No."

"Can you shoot well?"

"I was always a good shot.  Have hunted deer and small game a good
deal."

"What's your idea--throwin' in with a hide-hunter's outfit?"

Tom hesitated a moment over that query, and then frankly told the
truth about his rather complicated longings.

Hudnall laughed, and was impressed to the point of placing a kind
hand on Tom's shoulder.

"Young man, I'm glad you told me that," he said.  "Back of my own
reason for riskin' so much in this hide-huntin' is my need to make
money quick, an' I've got to have a ranch.  So we're two of a kind.
You're welcome to cast in your lot with us.  Shake on it."

Then Tom felt the mighty grip of a calloused hand that had known
the plow and the ax.  Pilchuck likewise offered to shake hands with
Tom, and expressed himself no less forcibly than Hudnall.

"Reckon it's a good deal on both sides," he said.  "The right kind
of men are scarce.  I know this buffalo-huntin'.  It's a hard game.
An' if skinnin' hides isn't tougher than diggin' coal, then I was a
meathunter on the U. P. an' the Santa Fe for nothin'."

Hudnall called the two younger men from their task of shoeing the
horse.  Both appeared under thirty, stocky fellows, but there the
resemblance ended.

"Burn, shake hands with Tom Doan," said Hudnall, heartily.  "An'
you, too, Stronghurl. . . .  Doan is goin' to throw in with us."

Both men greeted Tom with the cordial good will and curiosity
natural to an event of importance to them.  It was evident that
Burn, from his resemblance to Hudnall, was a son.  Stronghurl had
as remarkable a physiognomy as his name, and somehow they fitted
each other.

"Burn, you'll take Doan with your wagon," said Hudnall.  "That
fills our outfit, an' we'll be pullin' to-morrow for the
Panhandle. . . .  Hey, you women folks," he called toward the
wagons, "come out an' meet my new man."

The stout woman left off washing at the tub and came forward,
wiping her red hands on her apron.  She had a serious face that
lighted with a smile.

"Wife, this is Tom Doan," went on Hudnall, and next in order he
presented Tom to Burn's wife, whom Tom recognized as the young
woman he had seen in the wagon.  Last to emerge was a girl of
eighteen or thereabouts, sister of Burn and manifestly Hudnall's
pride.  She was of large frame, pleasant faced, and she had roguish
eyes that took instant stock of Tom.

Thus almost before he could realize his good fortune, Tom found
himself settled with people of his own kind, whom he liked on
sight.  Moreover, Hudnall had the same pioneer urge which possessed
Tom; and the fact that Pilchuck, an old buffalo-hunter, was to
accompany them down into Texas, just about made the deal perfect.
To be sure, Tom had not mentioned wages or shares, but he felt that
he could safely trust Hudnall.

"Where's your pack?" inquired Burn.  "An' what have you got in the
way of outfit?"

"I left it at the station," replied Tom.  "Not much of an outfit.
A bag of clothes and a valise."

"Nary horse or gun.  Have you any money?" went on Burn, with
cheerful interest.

"I've got two hundred dollars."

"Good.  Soon as we get this horse shod I'll go uptown with you."

"Well, son," spoke up Hudnall, "I reckon Tom had better let
Pilchuck buy gun an' horse an' what else he needs."

"Humph!" ejaculated Mrs. Hudnall.  "If I know men you'll all have a
say about horses an' guns."

"Mr. Doan, wouldn't you like me to help you pick out that horse?"
inquired Burn's sister, mischievously.

"Why, yes," replied Tom, joining in the laugh.  "I'd like you all
to help--so long as I get one I can ride."

The women returned to their tasks while Hudnall went off with
Pilchuck toward the town.  Left to his own devices, Tom presently
joined Burn and Stronghurl, who were not having any easy job
shoeing the horse.  It was a spirited animal.

"Doan, would you mind fetchin' that bay horse back?" asked Burn,
presently pointing toward the other side of the grove, where
several canvas-covered wagons gleamed among the trees.

Tom picked up a halter and strode away under the trees, at once
pleasantly preoccupied with thought of the most satisfying nature.
He came up with the bay horse, which he found eating out of a
girl's hand.  Tom saw and heard other people close by, but he did
not notice them particularly.  Intent on the horse, he did not take
a second glance at the girl, until she spoke.

"I've caught your horse twice to-day," she said.

"Much obliged.  But he's not mine," replied Tom, and as he put the
halter over the neck of the animal he looked at the girl.

Her eyes met his.  They were large, black as midnight, and they
gazed up from a face almost as dark as an Indian's.  Her hair was
brown and appeared to have a sheen or light upon it.

Tom's glance became what hers was--steady, almost a stare without
consciousness, a look of depth and gravity for which neither was
responsible.

Then Tom withdrew his glance and attended to knotting the halter.
Yet he could see her still.  She was of medium height, neither
robust nor heavy, yet giving an impression of unusual strength and
suppleness for a girl.  She was young.  Her dress of homespun
material looked the worse for wear.

"He's a pretty horse," she said, patting the sleek nose.

"Yes, he is.  I hope the horse I've got to buy will be like him,"
replied Tom.

"Are you a buffalo-killer, too?" she inquired, in quicker tone.

"I expect to be."

"Milly," called a gruff voice, "you're not a hoss thief and you're
not makin' up with strangers."

Tom turned hastily to see a big man looming across the camp fire.
He wore a leather apron and carried a hammer in his brawny hand.
It was impossible that this blond giant could be the girl's father.
Even in that moment of surprise and annoyance Tom felt glad of this
conviction.  The man's face bore a thin yellow beard that could not
hide its coarseness and brutality.  He had bright, hard blue eyes.

"Excuse me," said Tom, stiffly.  "I had to come after Mr. Hudnall's
horse."  Then turning to the girl, he thanked her.  This time her
eyes were cast down.  Tom abruptly started off, leading the animal.

It did not occur to him that there was anything significant about
the incident, except a little irritation at the coarse speech and
appearance of the blond man.  Nevertheless, that part of it slipped
from his mind, and the vague, somehow pleasurable impression of the
girl persisted until the serious and thrilling business of choosing
horse and gun precluded all else.

The fact that Hudnall and his men left off work, and Pilchuck
insisted on being the arbiter of these selections, attested to the
prime importance with which they regarded the matter.  Hudnall
argued with Pilchuck that he knew the merits of horses as well as
the latter knew guns.

So they journeyed into town, up the dusty motley-crowded street,
rubbing elbows with Indians, soldiers, hunters, scouts, teamsters,
men who bore the stamp of evil life upon their lean faces, and
women with the eyes of hawks.  Pilchuck knew almost everybody, it
seemed.  He pointed out many border celebrities to Tom's keen
interest.  One was Colonel Jones, a noted plainsman, who in the
near future was to earn the sobriquet "Buffalo Jones," not like his
contemporary, Buffalo Bill, for destroying buffalo, but for
preserving calves to form the nucleus of a herd.  Another, and the
most striking figure of a man Tom had ever seen, was Wild Bill,
perhaps the most noted of all frontiersmen.  He was a superb giant
of a man, picturesquely clad, straight as an Indian, with a
handsome face, still, intense, wonderful in its expression of the
wild spirit that had made him great.  Tom thought he had never
before seen such penetrating, alert eyes.  Pilchuck mentioned
casually that not long since, Wild Bill had fought and killed
twelve men in a dugout cabin on the plains.  Bill got shot and cut
to pieces, but recovered.  Tom was far from being a tenderfoot, yet
he gaped at these strange, heroic men, and thrilled to his depths.
Seeing them face to face stimulated and liberated something deep in
him.

The supply store where Pilchuck conducted Tom and the others was
full of purchasers, and except for absence of liquors in bottles it
resembled a border barroom.  It smelled of tobacco in bulk; and Tom
saw shelves and stacks of plug tobacco in such enormous quantity
that he marveled to Hudnall.

"Golly! man, we gotta have chaw tobacco," replied that worthy.

A counter littered with a formidable array of guns and knives
appeared to be Pilchuck's objective point.

"We want a big fifty," he said to the clerk.

"There's only one left an' it ain't new," replied this individual,
as he picked up a heavy gun.  It was a fifty-caliber Sharps rifle.
Pilchuck examined it and then handed it over to Tom.  "I've seen
better big fifties, but it'll do for a while. . . .  Next you want
a belt an' all the cartridges you can lug, an' both rippin' an'
skinnin' knives."

When these purchases were made Tom had indeed about all he could
carry.  Hudnall then ordered the supplies needed for his outfit,
and when that was accomplished Pilchuck led them down the street to
the outskirts of town, where there was a corral full of dusty,
vicious, kicking horses.  It took an hour for Pilchuck and Hudnall
to agree on a horse that Tom could ride.  Having been a farm hand
all his days, Tom was a good horseman, but he was not a bronco-
buster.  Finally the selection was made of horse, saddle, bridle,
blanket, and spurs.  When this purchase was paid for Tom laughed at
the little money he had left.

"Things come high, an' they ain't worth it," complained Pilchuck.
"But we haven't any choice.  That's a good horse--young enough,
strong, easy gait, but he never saw a buffalo."

"What of that?" asked Tom, with a little check to his elation.

"Nothin'.  Only the first buffalo he sees will decide a lot."

Tom regarded this rather ambiguous remark with considerable
misgiving and made a mental note of it, so he would not forget.

What with their purchases, and Tom's baggage, which they got at the
station, the party had about all they could take back to camp.  The
afternoon then was a busy one for all concerned.  Tom donned rough
garb and heavy boots, suitable to life in the open.  The change was
not made without perception of an indefinable shifting in his
spirit.  He was about to face the perils of the frontier, and
serious and thoughtful as he endeavored to make himself, he could
not repress an eager, wild response.  He tried out his horse, which
he named Dusty, because at that time nothing but a bath could have
removed the dust from him.  Dusty gave a creditable performance and
won the approval of all save Pilchuck.  Hudnall, and his daughter
Sally, particularly liked the horse.  Tom saw that he could sell or
trade at his discretion, and so for the time was well pleased.

The rest of the afternoon he spent helping Burn Hudnall arrange and
pack the big wagon that was to transport their precious outfit, and
later, out on the plains, haul the hides they expected to get.

"I was tellin' father I'd like to pick up a boy somewhere," said
Burn.

"What for?" inquired Tom.  "We can take care of this outfit."

"Sure, for the present.  But when we get out among the buffalo
we'll need some one to drive the wagon an' keep camp while we chase
an' kill an' skin buffalo."

"I see.  Then the idea will be a main camp kept by your father, and
the rest of us in pairs with wagons and outfits will range all
over?"

"I reckon that's Pilchuck's idea.  From what I can gather there'll
be a lot of hustlin' an' movin' when we strike the herds of
buffalo."

"I should think it'd be a chase with no time for camp," said Tom.

"Reckon so.  Anyways we're bound to know soon," replied Burn,
grimly.

At sunset Tom heard the cheery call of the women folk to supper;
and he was not far behind Burn in getting to the table, which was a
canvas spread on the ground.  They all appeared hungry.  Hudnall
loaded his tin plate, filled his cup, and then repaired to the
wagon, and set his supper upon the seat.  He was too big to squat
on the ground, cross-legged and Indian fashion, but his stature
enabled him to stand and eat from the wagon seat.  Pilchuck, too,
had his peculiar habit.  He set his plate down, and knelt on one
knee to eat.

They were all excited, except Pilchuck, and though this in no wise
distracted from a satisfying of hunger, it lent a sparkle and
jollity to the occasion.  Tom was not alone in having cut away from
the humdrum of settled communities and in cherishing dreams of
untrammeled country and future home and prosperity.

After supper he again walked into the town, purposely going alone.
He did not pry into his reason.  This third visit to the main
street did not satisfy his vague longing, whatever it was, and he
retraced his steps campward.

When he reached the end of the street passers-by became scarce, and
for that reason more noticeable.  But Tom did not pay attention to
any one until he heard a girl's voice.  It came from behind him and
had a note of annoyance, even anger.  A man's reply, too low and
husky for coherence, made Tom turn quickly.

A young woman carrying a heavy parcel was approaching, a step or
two in advance of a man.  It required only a glance to see that she
was trying to get away from him.

Tom strode to meet her, and recognized the girl with whom he had
exchanged words at the camp adjoining Hudnall's.

"Is that fellow bothering you?" demanded Tom.

"He insulted me," she replied.

Tom broke into swift strides toward the offender.

"Say, you!" he called, forcibly.  But the man hurried away, at a
pace that would have necessitated running to catch him.

"Never mind.  Let him go," said the girl, with a little laugh of
relief.

"This town is full of ruffians.  You should not have come in
alone," was Tom's reply.

"I know.  It's happened before.  I wasn't afraid--but I'm glad you
came along."

"That package looks heavy.  Let me carry it," offered Tom.

"Thank you, I can manage very well," she returned.

But he took it away from her, and in so doing touched her hand.
The effect on Tom was sudden and profound.  For the moment it
destroyed his naturalness.

"Well--I--it is heavy--for a girl," he said, awkwardly.

"Oh, I'm very strong," she rejoined.

Then their eyes met again, as they had when Tom had reached for the
horse and looked at her.  Only this time it seemed vastly
different.  She looked away, across the open toward the grove where
fires gleamed in the gathering twilight.  Then she moved.  Tom fell
into step beside her.  He wanted to talk, but seemed unable to
think of anything to say.  This meeting was not an ordinary
incident.  He could not understand himself.  He wanted to ask her
about who she was, where she was going, what relation she bore to
the rude man who had called her Milly.  Yet not a word could he
utter.  He could have spoken surely, if he had not been
concentrating on the vagueness and uncertainty of himself.

Before they had quite reached the edge of the grove she stopped and
confronted him.

"Thank you," she said, softly.  "I'll carry it now."

"No.  We're still a long distance from your camp."

"Yes--that's why," she returned, haltingly.  "You must not go with
me. . . .  He--my step-father, you heard him.  I--I can't tell you
more."

Tom did not yield up the parcel with very good grace.  "I may never
see you again!" he burst out.

She did not answer, but as she relieved him of the package she
looked up, straight and clear into his face.  Her eyes held him.
In them he read the same thought he had just exclaimed aloud.  Then
she bade him good night, and turning away, vanished in the gloom of
the grove.

Not until she was gone did Tom awake to a realization that this
chance meeting, apparently so natural on her part and kindly on
his, just an incident of travel, two strangers exchanging a few
civilities, was the most significant and appealing and thought-
provoking experience of his life.  Why had he not detained her,
just a moment, to ask for the privilege of seeing her again?
Still, he could see her to-morrow.  That last look of her big black
eyes--what did it mean?  His mind revolved many useless questions.
He found a seat at the edge of the grove and there he pondered.
Night came, dark and cool.  The stars shone.  Behind him sounded
the crackle of camp fires and the voices of men and the munch of
horses at their grain.

A strange thing had happened to him, but what was it?  A girl's
eyes, a few words, a touch of hands!  Had they been the cause of
this sudden melancholy one moment and inexplicable exaltation the
next, and his curiosity about her, and this delving into himself?
But he did not call it silly or foolish.  Tom was twenty-four years
old, yet this condition of mind was new.  Perhaps the thrill, the
excitement of the prospects ahead, had communicated themselves to
an otherwise ordinary incident.  The thought, however, he
ridiculed.  Every moment of his musing tended toward consciousness
of a strange, dreamy sweetness inspired by this girl.



CHAPTER III


When Tom roused next morning to Burn Hudnall's cheery call he found
that he had slept later than usual for him.

He rolled out of his bed of blankets under the wagon, and pulling
on his boots and washing his face and hands, was ready for
breakfast and the eventful day.

The sun had just risen above the eastern horizon.  West and
southwest the rolling prairie-land shone green and gold under the
bright morning light.  Near at hand horses and cattle grazed.  Far
down the clearly defined road canvas-covered wagons gleamed white.
Some of the buffalo-hunters were already on their way.  Tom stood a
moment, watching and thinking, as he drew a deep full breath of the
fresh crisp air, feeling that whatever lay in store for him beyond
the purple horizon--adventure, hardship, fortune--he was keen to
face it.

While at breakfast Tom suddenly remembered his meeting with the
girl, Milly.  In the broad light of day he did not feel quite the
same as in the gloaming of last night.  Yet a sweetness stole
pervadingly upon him.  Glancing through the grove toward the camp
where the first meeting with her had taken place, he missed the
white wagons.  That end of the grove was empty.  The wagons were
gone--and with them the girl.  Tom experienced a blankness of
thought, then a sense of loss and a twinge of regret.  After this
moment he thoughtfully went on eating his breakfast.  Nothing was
to come of the meeting.  Still, her people were buffalo-hunters,
too, and somewhere down in that wild country he might see her
again.  What a forlorn hope!  Yet by cherishing it he reconciled
himself to the fact that she was gone.

After breakfast his curiosity led him to walk over to where her
camp had been; and he trailed the wagon tracks out into the road,
seeing that they headed toward the southwest.  His grain of comfort
gathered strength.

"Our neighbors pulled out early," he remarked, halting where
Pilchuck and Hudnall were packing.

"Long before sunup," replied Hudnall.  "Did you hear them, Jude?"

"Huh!  They'd waked the dead," growled Pilchuck.  "Reckon Randall
Jett had his reason for pullin' out."

"Jett?  Let's see.  He was the man with the yellow beard.  Come to
think of it, he wasn't very civil."

"I heard some talk about Jett uptown," went on Pilchuck.  "'Pears
I've met him somewheres, but it's slipped my mind.  He's one of the
hide-hunters that's got a doubt hangin' on him.  Just doubt, it's
only fair to say.  Nobody knows anythin'.  Jett has come out of the
Panhandle twice with thousands of hides.  He's made money."

"Well, that's interestin'," replied Hudnall.  "He's just been
married.  My wife had some talk yesterday with a woman who must
have been Mrs. Jett.  She was from Missouri an' had a grown
daughter.  Married a few weeks, she said.  My wife got a hunch this
woman an' daughter weren't keen about the hide-huntin' business."

"Well, when you get down on the Staked Plains, you'll appreciate
Mrs. Jett's feelings," remarked Pilchuck, dryly.

Tom listened to this talk, much interested, recording it in memory.
Then he asked if all the buffalo-hunters followed the same line of
travel.

"Reckon they do," replied Pilchuck.  "There's only one good road
for a couple of hundred miles.  Then the hunters make their own
roads."

"Do they scatter all over the plains?" went on Tom.

"Well, naturally they hang round the buffalo.  But that herd is
most as big as the Staked Plains."

Tom had no knowledge of this particular part of Texas, but he did
not fail to get a conception of magnitude.

"When do we pull out?" he concluded.

"Soon as we hitch up."


In less than an hour the Hudnall outfit, with three good wagons
drawn by strong teams, were on the move.  The women rode with the
drivers.  Tom had the job of keeping the saddle horses in line.
They did not want to head out into the wilderness, and on the start
were contrary.  After a few miles, however, they settled down to a
trot and kept to the road.

Soon the gleam of the town, and groves of trees, and columns of
smoke, disappeared behind a rolling ridge, and all around appeared
endless gray-green plain, bisected by a white road.  No other
wagons were in sight.  Tom found the gait of his horse qualified to
make long rides endurable.  The lonely land was much to his liking.
Jack-rabbits and birds were remarkable for their scarcity.  The
plain appeared endlessly undulating, a lonesome expanse, mostly
gray, stretching away on all sides.  The soil was good.  Some day
these wide lands would respond to cultivation.

The Hudnall outfit traveled steadily until about four o'clock in
the afternoon, making about twenty-five miles.  A halt was called
in a grove of elm trees that had long appealed to Tom's eye.  It
amused him to see the amiable contention between Pilchuck and
Hudnall.  The former, like all guides and scouts long used to
outdoor life, wanted to camp at the first available spot where
others had camped.  But Hudnall sought a fresh and untrammeled
place, driving some distance off the road to a clean glade under
spreading elms just beginning to green.  A shallow creek ran under
the high bank.  Birds and rabbits were plentiful here, and cat and
coyote tracks showed on the muddy shore.

There was work for everybody and something of confusion.  Further
experience in making camp was essential before things could be done
smoothly and expeditiously.

"I laid out jobs for everybody.  Now rustle," was Hudnall's order.

The teams were unhitched and turned loose to drink and graze.
Harness and collars were hung upon the front wheels.  Tom scouted
for firewood, which appeared plentiful, and the ring of his ax
resounded through the glade.  Hudnall and his son lifted the cook
stove and mess box from a wagon, then the cooking utensils and
tableware.  A level spot was cleaned off, a fire started on the
ground and also in the stove, then the meal preparations were
turned over to the women.  Hudnall erected a tent for himself and
his wife.  Sally's bed was made in the wagon.  Pilchuck helped
Stronghurl pitch a tent beside their wagon, but he spread his own
bed, consisting of blankets on a tarpaulin, outside under the
trees.  Burn Hudnall put up a tent for himself and his wife, and
Tom unrolled his bed under Burn's wagon.

At sunset they ate supper.  The gold and pink of western sky
appeared to send a reflection upon the winding stream of water.
Everybody was hungry, and even Pilchuck seemed to feel something
good in the hour and the place.  If there had been any misgivings
on the part of the women, they had now vanished.  The talk was
jolly and hopeful.  Sally Hudnall made eyes at Tom, and then,
seeing her advances were apparently unobserved, she tried the same
upon Stronghurl.

After supper Tom chopped and carried wood for the camp fire that
night and for next morning.  This done, he strolled along the creek
toward the grazing horses.  Fresh green grass grew abundantly on
the banks and insured reasonably against the horses' straying that
night.  Tom decided not to hobble Dusty.

A few hundred yards from camp the creek circled through a grove of
larger elms and eddied in a deep pool.  Here on a log Tom lingered
and indulged in rest and musings.  His thoughts seemed to flow and
eddy like the stream, without any apparent reason.  But when
thought of the girl, Milly, recurred, it abided with him.  Here in
the solitude of this grove he seemed to remember more vividly, and
after reviewing gravely all the details concerning her it seemed to
him not improbable that she was unhappy and unfortunately situated.
"I--I can't tell you more," she had said, hurriedly, in a tone he
now realized held shame and fear.  Tom meditated over that, and at
the end of an hour, when dusk was creeping under the trees, he
threw off the spell and retraced his steps toward camp.  There was
little chance of his ever seeing her again.  With resignation to
that, and the vague sadness attending it, he put her out of his
mind.

Soon a camp fire blazed through the dusk, and seen from afar, with
the black shadows of men crossing its brightness, it made a telling
picture.  Tom joined the circle sitting and standing round it.  The
air had grown cold, making the warmth most agreeable.

"That 'tarnal smoke follows me everywhere I turn," said Sally
Hudnall, as she moved to a seat beside Stronghurl.

"Elm wood ain't so good to burn," observed Pilchuck.  "Neither is
cottonwood.  Smoke smells an' makes your eyes smart."

"Mary has a likin' for hickory," said Hudnall.  "Golly!  I'll bet
I'll never again have apple pie baked over a hickory fire."

"Unless you go back to Illinois," added his wife, dryly.

"Which'll never be, Mary," he replied, with finality.

His words, tinged with a suggestion of failure back there in
Illinois, checked conversation for a moment.  They all had places
dear to look back upon.  Pioneers had to sacrifice much.  Tom gazed
at the circle of quiet faces with more realization and kindness.
Buffalo-hunting was but to be an incident.  It had dominated his
thought.  In the background of his mind, in the future, had been
the idea of a ranch.  With these people home and farm were
paramount.  Tom wondered if they were not starting out upon an ill-
advised enterprise.  Not to think of its peril!


Day by day the Hudnall outfit traveled over the prairie, sometimes
west, and then south, yet in the main always southwest.  They made
from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, according to condition of
the road and favorable places to camp.  Now and then they passed a
freighting outfit of several wagons, heavily loaded with buffalo
hides.  The days passed into weeks, until Tom lost track of them.

Down here on the great plains spring had surely come.  All was
green and beautiful.  The monotony of the country had been broken
up by streams winding away between wooded banks, yet the rolling
level seemed to hold generally, viewed from afar.  On clear
mornings a gray heave of higher ground appeared to the south.  What
farther north had been an openness and sameness of country now
assumed proportions vast and striking.

One sunset, when halt was made for camp in an arroyo, Pilchuck
waived his usual work and rode off up a slope.  Reaching the
summit, he dismounted and, elevating a short telescope, he looked
long to the southward.  Later, when he returned to the camp, all
eyes fixed upon him.

"See anythin'?" queried Hudnall, impatiently.

Tom felt a thrill merely from the look of the scout.

"Buffalo!" announced Pilchuck.

There was a moment's silence.  The women responded more quickly to
this good news.  Hudnall seemed slow and thick.  Burn Hudnall threw
down a billet of wood he had held in his hand.

"Buffalo!" he echoed, and the quick look of gladness he flashed
upon his father proved how much he had been responsible for this
trip.

"How many?" demanded Hudnall, with a long stride toward the scout.

"Reckon I couldn't say, offhand," replied Pilchuck.  "Herd is
another day's ride south."

Sally Hudnall interrupted her father as he was about to speak
again:  "Oh, I'm crazy to see a herd of buffalo.  Are there lots of
them?"

"Tolerable many," replied Pilchuck, with a look of professional
pride.  "Reckon this herd is about fifteen miles long an' three or
four deep!"

Then Hudnall let out a stentorian roar, and that was a signal for
equally sincere if not so exuberant a rejoicing from the others.


Next day's travel was the longest Tom had ever endured.  The ground
was dusty, the sun hot, the miles interminable, and there appeared
ahead only the gray-green stretch of plain, leading the eyes with
false hopes.  But at last, toward sunset, a fringe of winding
foliage marked the course of a stream.  It seemed a goal.  Beyond
that water the great herd of buffalo must be grazing.  An hour more
of weary travel over uneven prairie--for Pilchuck had turned off
the road early that morning--brought the outfit down into a coulee,
the wildest and most attractive camp site that had yet fallen to
them.

Tom made short work of his camp duties that evening, and soon was
climbing the highest ridge.  He climbed fast in his eagerness.
Abruptly, then, he reached the top and looking westward, suddenly
became transfixed.

The sun was setting in a golden flare that enveloped the wide plain
below.  Half a mile from where he stood was an immense herd of huge
woolly beasts, wild and strange to his sight, yet unmistakably
buffalo.  Tom experienced the most tingling thrill of his life.
What a wonderful spectacle!  It was not at all what he had pictured
from tales he had heard.  This scene was beautiful; and the huge
straggling bulls seemed the grandest of big game beasts.  Thousands
of buffalo!  Tom reveled in his opportunity and made the most of
it.  He saw that the herd circled away out of sight beyond the
other end of the ridge upon which he stood.  Long he gazed, and
felt that he would never forget his first sight of a buffalo herd.

Upon his return to camp he found that he was not the only one late
for supper.  Hudnall had been out with Pilchuck.  Burn was on the
moment coming in with his wife and sister, who were talking
excitedly about what they had seen.

"How many did you see?" asked Hudnall, of Tom.

"Oh, I've no idea--all of five thousand--and I couldn't see the end
of the herd," replied Tom.

"We saw ten thousand, an' that on the other side of the ridge from
you," added Hudnall, tensely.  His big eyes were alight and he
seemed to look afar.  Tom sensed that Hudnall had not responded to
the wildness and beauty of the spectacle.  He saw thousands of
hides to sell.

"Reckon I heard shootin' down the river a couple of miles," said
Pilchuck.  "There's another outfit on the trail.  We'll be lucky if
we don't run into a dozen."

"Is this the main herd you spoke of?" inquired Tom.

"No.  This is only a little bunch," returned Pilchuck.

Mrs. Hudnall broke up the colloquy.  "Are you all daffy about
buffalo?  Supper's gettin' cold."

"Mary, you'll be fryin' buffalo steak for me to-morrow night,"
rejoined her husband, gayly.

After supper Hudnall called the men aside for the purpose of
consultation.

"Pilchuck an' me are pardners on this deal," he said.  "We'll pay
thirty cents a hide.  That means skinnin', haulin' the hide to
camp, an' peggin' it out.  No difference who kills the buffalo."

"That's more than you'll get paid by most outfits," added Pilchuck.

Stronghurl and Burn agreed on that figure; and as for Tom he
frankly admitted he thought thirty cents a hide was big pay.

"Huh!  Wait till you skin your first buffalo," said the scout,
grinning.  "You'll swear thirty dollars too little."

"Well, my part of this deal is settled.  I furnish supplies an' pay
for hides," said Hudnall.  "Jude here will boss the hunt."

"Not much bossin'," said that individual.  "We're a little farther
south than I've hunted.  I rode through here with some soldiers
last fall, an' know the country.  This bunch of buffalo is hangin'
along the river.  Reckon there's buffalo for miles.  They'll hang
around here, unless too many outfits get chasin' them.  A good way
to hunt is to catch them comin' to drink.  Aim to hit behind the
shoulder, an' shoot till he drops.  Sometimes it takes two or three
bullets, an' sometimes five on the old bulls.  When you hunt out in
the open you've got to ride like hell, chase them, an' keep
shootin' till your cartridges are all gone."

"That's easy, an' ought to be heaps of fun," said Burn.

"Reckon so.  An' don't forget it's dangerous.  Keep out of their
reach.  The real hard work comes in skinnin' an' peggin' out.
Before you get good enough at that to make three dollars a day,
you'll be sick of the job."

"Three dollars!" echoed Burn, in scorn.  "I expect to make five
times that much."

Tom had much the same aspiration, but he did not voice it.
Pilchuck looked amused and mysterious enough to restrain undue
enthusiasm.

"Finally--an' this is a hunch you want to take serious," went on
Pilchuck, lowering his voice so the women could not hear.  "We
might run on to Indians."

That sobered all the listeners.

"Last summer was bad an' fall was worse," he continued.  "I don't
know now how conditions are or what the Indians are doin.'  Reckon
somebody, hunters or soldiers, will happen along an' tell us.  My
belief is there'll be some tough fights this year.  But, of course,
the redskins can't be everywhere, an' these buffalo are thick an'
range far.  We may be lucky an' never see a Comanche.  But we'll
have to keep our eyes peeled all the time an' mustn't get far
apart.  If we see or hear of Indians, we'll move camp an' stand
guard at night."

"Jude, that's stranger talk than you've used yet," responded
Hudnall, in surprise and concern.

"Reckon so.  I'm not worryin.'  I'm just tellin' you.  There'll be
a heap of hunters in here this summer.  An' like as not the
soldiers will see what women there are safe to the fort or some
well-protected freightin' post."

Tom thought of the dark-eyed girl, Milly.  Almost he had forgotten.
How long ago that meeting seemed!  Where was she now?  He convinced
himself that Pilchuck's assurance of the protection of soldiers
applied to all the women who might be with the hunting bands.

No more was said about Indians.  Interest reverted strongly to the
proposed hunt to begin on the morrow.  Tom fell in with the spirit
of the hour and stayed up late round the camp fire, listening to
the talk and joining in.  Once their animated discussion was
silenced by a mournful howl from the ridge-top where Tom had
climbed to see the buffalo.  It was a strange sound, deep and
prolonged, like the bay of a hound on a deer scent, only infinitely
wilder.

"What's that?" asked somebody.

"Wolf," replied Pilchuck.  "Not a coyote, mind you, but a real old
king of the plains.  There's a lot of wolves hang with the
buffalo."

The cry was not repeated then, but later, as Tom composed himself
in his warm blankets, it pealed out again, wonderfully breaking the
stillness.  How hungry and full of loneliness!  It made Tom shiver.
It seemed a herald of wilderness.

Tom was the first to arise next morning, and this time it was the
ring of his ax and the crash of wood thrown into the camp-fire
circle that roused the others.  When Stronghurl sallied forth to
find the horses, daylight had broken clear; and by the time
breakfast was ready the sun was up.

Pilchuck, returning from the ridge-top, reported that buffalo were
in sight, all along the river, as far as he could see.  They were a
goodly distance out on the plain and were not yet working in for a
drink.

"I'll take my turn hangin' round camp," said Hudnall, plainly with
an effort!  "There's a lot to do, an' some one must see after the
women folks."

"It'd be a good idea for you to climb the ridge every two hours or
so an' take a look," replied Pilchuck, casually.  But his glance at
Hudnall was not casual.  "I'll leave my telescope for you.  Don't
miss anythin'."

The men saddled their horses and donned the heavy cartridge belts.
They also carried extra cartridges in their pockets.  Tom felt
weighted down as if by a thousand pounds.  He had neglected to buy
a saddle sheath for his gun, and therefore would have to carry it
in his hand--an awkward task while riding.

They rode behind Pilchuck down the river, and forded it at a
shallow sand-barred place, over which the horses had to go at brisk
gait to avoid miring.

"How're we ever goin' to get the wagons across?" queried Burn
Hudnall.

"Reckon we've no choice," replied Pilchuck.  "The hides have to be
hauled to camp.  You see the actual chasin' an' killin' of buffalo
doesn't take much time.  Then the real work begins.  We'll have all
the rest of the day--an' night, to skin, haul to camp, an' peg
out."

This side of the river bank was more wooded and less precipitous
than the other.  Buffalo tracks were as thick as cattle tracks
round a water-hole.  The riders halted at the top of the slope
where the level plain began.  Out on the grassy expanse, perhaps a
mile or more, extended a shaggy dark line like a wall.

"Reckon there's your buffalo," said the scout.  "Now we'll scatter
an' wait under cover for an hour or so.  Hide in the brush or
behind a bank, anywhere till some come close.  Then burn powder!
An' don't quit the buffalo you shoot at till he's down.  When they
run off, chase them, an' shoot from your horses.  The chase won't
last long, for the buffalo will run away from you."

Pilchuck stationed Tom at this point, and rode on down the edge of
the plain with the other men.  They passed out of sight.  In that
direction Tom could not see far, owing to rising ground.  To the
southwest, however, the herd extended until it was impossible to
distinguish between vague black streaks of buffalo and dim
distance.

"Pilchuck said this was only a little bunch!" soliloquized Tom, as
he scanned the plain-wide band of beasts.

Dismounting, he held his horse and stood at the edge of the timber,
watching and listening.  It was a wonderfully satisfying moment.
He tried to be calm, but that was impossible.  He recognized what
had always been deep in him--the love of adventure and freedom--the
passion to seek these in unknown places.  Here, then, he stood at
his post above the bank of a timber-bordered river in the Panhandle
of Texas with a herd of buffalo in sight.  He saw coyotes, too, and
a larger beast, gray in color, that he was sure was a wolf.  Hawks
and buzzards sailed against the blue sky.  Down through the trees,
near the river, he espied a flock of wild turkeys.  Then, in
connection with all he saw, and the keenness of the morning which
he felt, he remembered the scout's caution about Indians.  Tom
thought that he ought to be worried, even frightened, but he was
neither.  This moment was the most mysteriously full and satisfying
of his life.

Opposite his point the buffalo did not approach more closely; he
observed, however, that to the eastward they appeared to be
encroaching upon the river brakes.

Suddenly then he was thrilled by gun-shots.  Boom!  Boom! . . .
Boom-boom!  His comrades had opened the hunt.

"What'll I do now?" he mused, gazing down the river, then out
toward the herd.  It presented no change that he could distinguish.
"I was told to stay here.  But with shooting begun, I don't think
any buffalo will come now."

Soon after that a gun roared out much closer, indeed, just over the
rise of plain below Tom.

"That's a big fifty!" he ejaculated, aloud.

Far beyond, perhaps two miles distant, sounded a report of a
Sharps, low but clear on the still morning air.  Another and
another!  Tom began to tingle with anticipation.  Most likely his
comrades would chase the buffalo his way.  Next he heard a shot
apparently between the one that had sounded close and the one far
away.  So all three of his fellow hunters had gotten into action.
Tom grew restive.  Peering out at the herd, he discovered it was
moving.  A low trample of many hoofs assailed his ears.  Dust
partially obscured the buffalo.  They appeared to be running back
into the gray expanse.  Suddenly Tom became aware of heavy and
continuous booming of guns--close, medium, and far-away reports
mingling.  As he listened it dawned on him that all the reports
were diminishing in sound.  His comrades were chasing the buffalo
and getting farther away.  After a while he heard no more.  Also
the dust-shrouded buffalo opposite his position had disappeared.
His disappointment was keen.

Presently a horseman appeared on the crest of the ridge that had
hidden the chase from him.  The white horse was Pilchuck's.  Tom
saw the rider wave his hat, and taking the action as a signal he
mounted and rode at a gallop to the ridge, striking its summit some
few hundred yards to the right.  Here he had unobstructed view.
Wide gray-green barren rolling plain, hazy with dust!  The herd of
buffalo was not in sight.  Tom rode on to meet Pilchuck.

"Tough luck for you," said the scout.  "They were workin' in to the
river below here."

"Did you kill any?" queried Tom, eagerly.

"I downed twenty-one," replied Pilchuck.  "An' as I was ridin' back
I met Stronghurl.  He was cussin' because he'd only got five.  An'
Burn burned a lot of powder.  But so far as I could see he got only
one."

"No!" ejaculated Tom.  "Why, he was sure of dozens."

"Reckon he knows more now," returned Pilchuck.  "You ride down
there an' see how many you can skin.  I'll go back to camp, hitch
up a wagon, an' try to come back across the river."

The scout rode away, and Tom, turning his horse eastward, took to a
trot down the immense gradual slope.  After searching the plain he
espied a horse grazing, and then a dark shaggy mound which
manifestly was a slain buffalo.  Tom spurred his horse, rapidly
covering the distance between.  Soon he saw Burn at work skinning
the buffalo.

"Good for you!" shouted Tom, as he galloped up.

"Helluva job--this skinnin'!" yelled Burn, flashing a red and
sweaty face toward Tom.  "Hey!  Look out!"

But his warning came too late.  Tom's horse snorted furiously, as
if expelling a new and hateful scent, and, rearing high, he came
down and plunged so violently that Tom flew one way and his gun
another.

Tom landed hard and rooted his face in the grass.  The shock
stunned him for a second.  Then he sat up and found himself unhurt.
The surprise, the complete victory of the horse, and the
humiliation of being made to root the ground like a pig stirred Tom
to some heat.

"Hope you ain't hurt?" sailed Burn, anxiously, rising from his
work.

"No, but I'm mad," replied Tom.

Whereupon Burn fell back and rolled over in the grass, roaring with
mirth.  Tom paid no attention to his comrade.  Dusty had run off a
hundred or more paces, and was now walking, head to one side,
dragging his bridle.  Tom yelled to stop him.  Dusty kept on.
Whereupon Tom broke into a run and caught him.

"You're a fine horse," panted Tom, as he mounted.  "Now you'll--go
back--and rub your nose--on that buffalo."

Dusty appeared placable enough, and trotted back readily until once
again close to the buffalo.  Tom spurred him on and called forcibly
to him.  Dusty grew excited as he came nearer.  Still he did not
show any ugliness.

"Don't hurry him," remonstrated Burn.  "He's just scared."

But Tom, not yet cooled in temper, meant that Dusty should go right
up to the buffalo.  This he forced the horse to do.  Then suddenly
Dusty flashed down his head and seemed to propel himself with
incredible violence high into the air.  He came down on stiff legs.
The shock was so severe that Tom shot out of the saddle.  He came
down back of the cantle.  Desperately he clung to the pommel, and
as Dusty pitched high again, his hold broke and he spun round like
a top on the rump of the horse and slid off.  Dusty ceased his
pitching and backed away from the dead buffalo.

Only Tom's feelings were hurt.  Burn Hudnall's "Haw! haw! haw!"
rolled out in great volume.  Tom sat where he had been dumped, and
gazing at the horse, he gradually induced a state of mind bordering
upon appreciation of how Dusty must have felt.  Presently Burn got
up, and catching Dusty, led him slowly and gently, talking
soothingly the while, nearer to the buffalo, and held him there.

"He's all right now," said Burn.

Tom rose and went back to the horse and patted him.

"You bucked me off, didn't you?"

"Tom, if I were you I'd get off an' lead him up to the dead buffalo
till he gets over his scare," suggested Burn.

"I will," replied Tom, and then he gazed down at the shaggy carcass
on the ground.  "Phew! the size of him!"

"Looks big as a woolly elephant, doesn't he?  Big bull," Pilchuck
said.  "He's the only one I got, an' sure he took a lot of
shootin'.  You see the buffalo was runnin' an' I couldn't seem to
hit one of them.  Finally I plunked this bull.  An' he kept on
runnin' till I filled him full of lead."

"Where are those Pilchuck got?" queried Tom, anxious to go to work.

"First one's lyin' about a quarter--there, to the left a little.
You go tackle skinnin' him.  It's an old bull like this.  An' if
you get his skin off to-day I'll eat it."

"I've skinned lots of cattle--steers and bulls," replied Tom.  "It
wasn't hard work.  Why should this be?"

"Man, they're buffalo, an' their skin's an inch thick, tougher than
sole leather--an' stick!  Why it's riveted on an' clinched."

"Must be some knack about the job, then," rejoined Tom, mounting
Dusty.  "Say, I nearly forgot my gun.  Hand it up, will you? . . .
Burn, I'll bet you I skin ten buffalo before dark and peg them out,
as Pilchuck called it, before I go to bed."

"I'll take you up," said Burn, with a grim laugh.  "I just wish I
had time to watch you.  It'd be a circus.  But I'll be ridin' by
you presently."

"All right.  I'm off to win that bet," replied Tom, in cheery
determination, and touching Dusty with the spurs he rode rapidly
toward the next fallen buffalo.



CHAPTER IV


Dusty evinced less fear of the second prostrate buffalo, which was
even a larger bull than the huge tough old animal Burn was engaged
in skinning.

This time Tom did not take any needless risks with Dusty.  Riding
to within fifty feet of the dead beast, he dismounted, led the
nervous horse closer, and round and round, and finally up to it.
Dusty behaved very well, considering his first performance; left to
himself, however, he edged away to a considerable distance and
began to graze.

Tom lost no time in getting to work.  He laid his gun near at hand,
and divesting himself of his coat he took ripping and skinning
knives from his belt.  Determination was strong in him.  He
anticipated an arduous and perplexing job, yet felt fully capable
of accomplishing it and winning his bet with Burn.  This buffalo
was a monster; he was old and the burrs and matted hair appeared a
foot deep at his forequarters; he was almost black.

First Tom attempted to turn the beast over into a more favorable
position for skinning.  He found, however, that he could scarcely
budge the enormous bulk.  That was a surprise.  There appeared
nothing to do but go to work as best he could, and wait for help to
move the animal.  Forthwith he grasped his ripping knife and
proceeded to try following instructions given him.  It took three
attempts to get the knife under the skin and when he essayed to rip
he found that a good deal of strength was required.  He had
calculated that he must expend considerable energy to make any
speed, until practice had rendered him proficient.  The
considerable energy grew into the utmost he could put forth.  After
the ripping came the skinning, and in very short time he
appreciated all Burn had said.  "Helluva job is right!" Tom
commented, remembering his comrade's words.  But he did not spare
himself, and by tremendous exertions he had the buffalo skinned
before Burn finished his.  Tom could not vouch for the merit of the
job, but the skin was off.  He could vouch, however, for his
breathlessness and the hot sweat that bathed his body.  Plowing
corn or pitching wheat, jobs he had imagined were hard work, paled
into insignificance.

"Say--wonder what pegging out the hide--will be like," he panted,
as he sheathed his knives and picked up his gun.  Mounting Dusty he
rode eastward, scanning the plain for the next dead buffalo.

Presently he espied it, and galloping thither he found it to be
another bull, smaller and younger than the others, and he set to
work with renewed zeal.  He would have to work like a beaver to win
that bet.  It took violence to make a quick job of this one.  That
done, Tom rode on to the third.

While he was laboring here Burn rode by and paid him a hearty
compliment, which acted upon Tom like a spur.  He could not put
forth any greater zeal; indeed, he would do wonders if he kept to
the pace he had set himself.  But as he progressed he learned.
This advantage, however, was offset by the gradual dulling of his
knives.  He had forgotten to bring his steel.

He toiled from one dead buffalo to another.  The breeze died away,
the sun climbed high and blazed down upon the plain.  His greatest
need was water to drink.  Hour by hour his thirst augmented.  His
shirt was so wet with perspiration that he could have wrung it out.
The heat did not bother him so much.  Gradually his clothes became
covered with a lather of sweat, blood, grease, and dust.  This, and
the growing pangs in his body, especially hands and forearms,
occasioned him extreme annoyance.  He did not note the passing of
time.  Only now and then did he scan the plain for sign of his
comrades.  Indians he had completely forgotten.  Burn and
Stronghurl were to be seen at intervals, and Pilchuck, driving the
wagon, was with them.  Once from a high knoll Tom thought he espied
another wagon miles down the river, but he could not be sure.  He
did, however, make out a dim black blur to the southward, and this
he decided was the buffalo herd, ranging back toward the river.

During this strenuous time there were incidents of much interest,
if he could only have given them due attention.  Buzzards swooped
down over him, closer and closer, till he felt the wind of their
wings.  A lean gray wolf came within range of his gun, but Tom had
no time for shooting.  He toiled on and the hours flew.

When, late in the afternoon, he tore off the hide that assured him
of winning the wager, he was exultant.  He was now two miles from
the wagon, which he made out was approaching.  Only one more
buffalo did he find, and this he skinned by the time Pilchuck drove
up.

"Wal, if you ain't a Kansas cyclone!" ejaculated the scout, with
undisguised admiration.  "Seventeen skinned your first day!  Doan,
I never seen the beat of it."

"I had a bet with Burn," replied Torn, wiping his hot face.

"If you can keep that lick up, young man, you'll make a stake out
of this hide-huntin'," returned Pilchuck, seriously.

"Wait till I learn how!" exclaimed Tom, fired by the praise and the
hopes thus engendered.

"Reckon I'll cut the hump off this young bull," remarked the scout,
as he climbed out of the seat.  "Buffalo steak for supper, hey?"

"I could eat hoofs.  And I'm spitting cotton," said Tom.

"You forgot a canteen.  Son, you mustn't forget ANYTHIN' in this
game," admonished Pilchuck.  "Rustle back to camp."

Tom was interested, however, to learn how Pilchuck would cut the
desirable hump from the carcass.  Long had Tom heard of the savory
steaks from the buffalo.  The scout thrust his big knife in near
the joining of the loin, ripped forward along the lower side as far
as the ribs ran; then performed a like operation on the upper side.
That done, he cut the ends loose and carved out a strip over three
feet long and so thick it was heavy.

"Reckon we can rustle back to camp now," he said, throwing the meat
on the pile of hides in the wagon.

"Is that the herd coming back?" queried Tom, pointing from his
horse.

"Yes.  They'll be in to-night yet to drink.  We'll find them here
to-morrow mornin'.  Did you hear the big fifties of the other
hunters?"

"You mean others besides our outfit?  No, I didn't."

"There's a couple of outfits down the river.  But that's lucky for
us.  Probably will be hunters all along here soon.  Reckon there's
safety in numbers an' sure the buffalo are plenty enough."

Tom rode back to camp facing a sunset that emblazoned the western
ramparts in gold and purple.  The horizon line was far distant and
lifted high, a long level upland, at that moment singularly wild
and beautiful.  Tom wondered if it could be the eastern extension
of the great Staked Plains he had heard mentioned so often.  Weary
as he was from his extraordinary exertions, he yet had spirit left
to look and feel and think.  The future seemed like that gold-
rimmed horizon line.

He reached camp before dusk, there to receive the plaudits of his
comrades and also the women folks.  Burn was generous in his
eulogy, but he created consternation in Tom's breast by concluding,
"Wait till you try peggin' out a hide!"

"Aw!  I forgot there was more.  I've not won that bet yet," he
rejoined, dejectedly.

After attending to his horse Tom had just about enough energy left
to drink copiously and stretch out with a groan under a tree.
Never before in his life had he throbbed and ached and burned so
exceedingly.  An hour's rest considerably relieved him.  Then
supper, which he attacked somewhat as if he were a hungry wolf, was
an event to be remembered.  If all his comrades had not been
equally as ravenous he would have been ashamed.  Pilchuck got much
satisfaction out of the rapid disappearance of many buffalo steaks.

"Meat's no good when so fresh," he averred.  "After bein' hung up a
few days an' set, we call it, an' fried in tallow, it beats beef
all hollow."

Before darkness set in Tom saw Pilchuck peg out a hide.  First the
scout laid the hide flat and proceeded to cut little holes in it
all around the edge.  Next with ax and knife he sharpened sticks
nearly a foot long.  Three of these he drove through the neck of
the hide and deep enough into the ground to hold well.  Then he
proceeded to the tail end and stretched the skin.  Tom could well
see that skill was required here.  Pilchuck held the skin
stretched, and at the same time drove one peg, then another, at
this end.  Following that, he began to stretch and peg the side,
eventually working all around.  The whole operation did not take
long and did not appear difficult.

Tom essayed it with a vim that made up for misgivings.  Like the
skinning, it was vastly more difficult than it looked.  Cutting the
holes and making the pegs was easy; however, when it came to
stretching the hide and holding it and pegging it all by himself,
he found it a most deceiving and irksome task.

Sally Hudnall offered to help Tom, but he declined with thanks,
explaining that he had a wager to win.  The girl hovered round Tom
and curiously watched him, much to his annoyance.  He saw that she
was laughing at him.

"What's so funny?" he queried, nettled.

"You look like a boy tryin' to play mumbly-peg an' leap-frog at
once," she replied with a giggle.

Tom had to laugh a good-natured acknowledgment to that; and then he
deftly turned the tables on her by making a dry, casual remark
about Stronghurl.  The girl blushed and let him alone to ponder
over the intricacies of this hide pegging.  No contortionist ever
performed more marvels of stretching his body than Tom achieved.
Likewise, no man ever so valiantly stifled back speech that would
have been unseemly, to say the least, in the hearing of women.  His
efforts, however, were crowned with the reward of persistence.  By
midnight he had the job done, and utterly spent he crawled into his
bed, where at once his eyes seemed to glue shut.

Next morning he readily answered Pilchuck's call, but his body was
incapable of a like alacrity.  He crawled out of his blankets as if
he were crippled.  A gradual working of his muscles, however,
loosened the stiffness and warmed the cold soreness to the extent
that he believed he could begin the day with some semblance of
service.

It was again, in Pilchuck's terse terms, every man for himself.
Tom welcomed this for two reasons, first that he could go easy, and
secondly that he wanted to revel in and prolong his first real
encounter with the buffalo.

Hudnall changed Tom's plans somewhat by relegating him to watch
camp that day, while he went out with the other men.  He modified
this order, however, by saying that if any buffalo came near camp
Tom might go after them.

Breakfast was over at sunrise.  Pilchuck brought out his heavy
ammunition box, with which each hunter was provided, and told Tom
he could help a little and learn while he helped.  His belt
contained more than thirty empty shells that were to be reloaded.

"Reckon I ought to have done this last night," he explained to
Hundall, who was impatient to be off.  "You fellows go on down the
river.  I'll catch up with you."

The three hunters rode off eagerly, and Pilchuck got out his tools
for reloading.  Tom quickly learned the use of bullet-mold, swedge,
lubricator, primer, extractor, tamper, and patch-paper.

"Reckon I'm all set now," affirmed the scout.  "You put these tools
away for me.  An' keep a good lookout.  I'm not worryin', but I'd
like to know if there's Indians huntin' this herd.  Take a look
from the ridge with my glass, an' there'll be buffalo on the other
side of the river to-day, you can keep in sight of camp an' get a
shot."

With that Pilchuck mounted his horse and trotted away through the
timber.  Tom leisurely set about the few tasks at hand.  It pleased
him when he was able to avoid Sally's watching eyes.  She seemed to
regard him with something of disapproval.  When the camp chores
were finished Tom took the telescope and climbed to the ridge-top.
Apparently more buffalo were in sight than on the previous day and
about in the same latitude.  Tom swept the circle of surrounding
country, gray-green rolling plain, the low ridges, the winding
river depression, with its fringe of trees.  Some miles down the
river rose a column of smoke, marking, no doubt, another camp.  Far
away to the south and west loomed the strange upheaval of land.
Clearly defined by the telescope, it appeared to be an escarpment
of horizon-wide dimensions, gray and barren, seamed by canyons,
standing in wild and rugged prominence above the plains.

Not until late in the morning did Tom's watchful gaze espy buffalo
approaching camp.  Then he was thrilled to see a number of what
appeared to be bulls grazing riverward opposite the camp.  Hurrying
down from the eminence whence he had made this observation, he got
his gun and cartridges, and crossing the river he proceeded up the
thickly wooded slope some distance to the west of his first stand
of yesterday.  It looked to him as if the bulls might work down
into a coulee which opened into the river depression.  He was quite
a little time reaching the point desired--the edge of woodland and
brink of the ravine--and when he peered from under the last trees
he was moved with such an overwhelming excitement that he dropped
to his knees.

Out on the open plain, not a hundred yards distant, grazed nine
buffalo bulls, the leader of which appeared larger than the largest
he had skinned the day before.  They had not scented Tom and were
grazing toward him, somewhat to the right, manifestly headed for
the coulee.

Trembling and panting, Tom watched with strained sight.  He forgot
he held a "big fifty" in his hands, and in the riotous sensation of
that moment he did not remember until from far down the river came
a dull boom--boom of guns.  It amazed him to see that the buffalo
bulls paid no attention to the shooting.  He made up his mind then
to take his time and await a favorable opportunity to down the
leader.  They were approaching so slowly that he had ample time to
control the trembling of his muscles, though it was impossible to
compose himself.

Several of the bulls piled over the little bank into the coulee,
and while they were passing within fifty yards of Tom the others
leisurely began the descent, the huge bull nodding along in the
rear.  The near ones passed into the timber, getting farther away
from Tom.  He had difficulty in restraining his eagerness.  Then
one bull began to crash in the brush.  He made as much noise as an
elephant.  Tom watched with an intense interest only second to the
hot-pressed lust to kill.  This bull was crashing against thick
brush, and it soon became plain to Tom that the beast was
scratching his shaggy hide, tearing out the matts of burrs and the
shedding hair.  It came away in great tufts, hanging on the sharp
broken ends of the brush.  This old bull knew what he was about
when he charged that thicket of hackberry.

Suddenly Tom was electrified by a puff which assuredly came from
the nostrils of a buffalo close to him.  He turned cautiously.
Behind and below him, closer than fifty yards, the other bulls were
passing into the timber.  He plainly heard the grinding of their
teeth.  They were monsters.  Instinctively Tom searched for a tree
to climb or a place to run to after he fired.  What if they should
charge his way?  He would scarcely have time to reload, and even if
he had, of what avail would that be?

Then the monarch wagged his enormous head in line with Tom's
magnifying vision.  What a wide short face!  His eyes stood out so
that he could see in front or behind.  His shaggy beard was
dragging.  Tom could see only the tips of the horns in all that
woolly mass.  Puff! came the sound of expelled breath.

Tom felt he hated to kill that glorious and terrifying beast, yet
he was powerless to resist the tight palpitating feverish dominance
of his blood.  Resting the heavy rifle on a branch, he aimed behind
the great shaggy shoulder, and with strained muscles and bated
breath he fired.

Like a cannon the old Sharps roared.  Crashings of brush, thudding
of heavy hoofs, sounded to the right of the cloud of smoke.  The
other bulls were running.  Tom caught glimpses of broad brown backs
cleaving the brush down the river slope.  With shaking hands he
reloaded.  Peering under the drifting smoke, he searched fearfully
for the bull he had fired at, at first seeing only the thick-
grassed swelling slope of the coulee.  Then farther down he espied
a huge brown object lying inert.

The wildness of the boy in Tom conquered all else.  Leaping up, he
broke out of the woods, yelling like an Indian, and charged down
the gentle slope, exultant and proud, yet not quite frenzied enough
to forget possible peril.  From that quarter, however, he was safe.
The monarch was heaving his last breath.


Pilchuck rode in at noon that day, in time to see Tom stretch the
hide of his first buffalo.

"You got one, hey?" he called, eying the great shaggy hide with
appreciation.  "Your first buffalo!  Wal, it's a darned fine one.
They don't come any bigger than that fellow."

Tom had to tell the story of his exploit, and was somewhat
discomfited by the scout's remark that he should have killed
several of the bulls.

"Aren't you back early?" queried Tom, as Pilchuck dismounted.

"Run out of cartridges," he said, laconically.

"So quick!" exclaimed Tom, staring.  "You must have seen a lot of
buffalo."

"Reckon they WAS thick this mornin'," returned the scout, dryly.
"I got plumb surrounded once an' had to shoot my way out."

"Well! . . .  How many did you down?"

"Twenty-one.  I think when we count up tonight we'll have a good
day.  Burn is doin' better than yesterday. . . .  Wal, I want a
bite to eat an' a drink.  It's warm ridin' in the dust.  Then I'll
hitch up the wagon an' drive down for the hides.  Come to think of
it, though, I've a job to do before.  You can help me."

Later Pilchuck hailed Tom to fetch an ax and come on.  Tom followed
the scout down into the thickets.

"Cut four strong poles about ten feet long an' pack them to camp,"
said Pilchuck.

Tom did as he was bidden, to find that the scout had returned ahead
of him, carrying four short poles with forks at one end.  He
proceeded to pound these into the ground with the forks uppermost,
and then he laid across them the poles Tom had brought, making a
square framework.  "We'll stretch a hide inside the poles, loose so
it'll sag down, an' there we'll salt our buffalo humps."

Pilchuck then brought in a team of horses and hitched it to the big
wagon.  "Wal, son," he said to Tom, "I ain't hankerin' after
skinnin' hides.  But I may as well start.  We're goin' to kill more
buffalo than we'll have time to skin."

He drove out of camp down the slope into the shallow water.  The
horses plunged in at a trot, splashing high.  Pilchuck lashed out
with the long whip and yelled lustily.  Any slowing up there meant
wheels stuck in the sand.  Horses, driver, and wagon were drenched.
From the other side Pilchuck looked back.  "Fine on a day like
this," he shouted.

Not long after he had gone Tom heard one of the horses up the river
neigh several times.  This induced him to reconnoiter, with the
result that he espied a wagon coming along the edge of the timber.
It appeared to be an open wagon, with one man in the driver's seat.
Another, following on horseback, was leading two extra horses.

"More hide-hunters," Tom decided as he headed toward them.  "Now I
wonder what's expected of me in a case like this."

When the driver espied Tom come into the open, rifle in hand, he
halted the horses abruptly.

"Dunn outfit--hide-hunters," he announced, with something of
alarmed alacrity, as if his identity and business had been
questioned.  He appeared to be a short, broad man, and what little
of his face was visible was bright red.  He had bushy whiskers.

"I'm Tom Doan, of Hudnall's outfit," replied Tom.  "We're camped
just below."

"Clark Hudnall!  By all that's lucky!" exclaimed the man.  "I know
Hudnall.  We talked some last fall of going in together.  That was
at Independence.  But he wasn't ready and I come ahead."

Tom offered his hand, and at this juncture the horseman that had
been behind the wagon rode forward abreast of the driver.  He was a
fat young man with a most jocund expression on his round face.  His
apparel was striking in its inappropriateness to the rough life of
the plains.  His old slouch hat was too small for his large head,
and there was a tuft of tow-colored hair sticking out of a hole in
the crown.

"Ory, shake hands with Tom Doan, of Hudnall's outfit," said Dunn.
"My nephew, Ory Tacks."

"Much obliged to meet you, Mister Doan," replied Tacks, with great
aplomb.

"Howdy!  Same to you," greeted Tom, in slow, good humor, as he
studied the face of this newcomer.

Dunn interrupted his scrutiny.

"Is Hudnall in camp?"

"No.  He's out hunting buffalo.  I'm sure you're welcome to stop at
our camp till he comes in.  That'll be around sundown."

"Good.  I'm needing sight and sound of some one I know," replied
Dunn, significantly.  "Lead the way, Doan.  These horses of mine
are thirsty."

When the travelers arrived at Hudnall's camp, Tom helped them
unhitch in a favorable camping spot, and unpack the necessary camp
duffle.  Once during this work Ory Tacks halted so suddenly that he
dropped a pack on his foot.

"Ouch!" he cried, lifting his foot to rub it with his hand while he
kept his gaze toward Tom's camp.  It was an enraptured and amazed
gaze.  "Do I see a beautiful young lady?"

Thus questioned, Tom wheeled to see Sally Hudnall's face framed in
the white-walled door of Hudnall's prairie wagon.  It was rather
too far to judge accurately, but he inclined to the impression that
Sally was already making eyes at Ory Tacks.

"Oh!  There!" ejaculated Tom, hard put to it to keep his face
serious.  "It's a young lady, all right--Miss Sally Hudnall.  But I
can't see that she--"

"Uncle Jack, there's a girl in this camp," interrupted Ory, in
tones of awe.

"We've got three women," said Tom.

"Well, that's a surprise to us," returned Dunn.  "I had no idea
Hudnall would fetch his women folks down here into the buffalo
country.  I wonder if he . . .  Tom, is there a buffalo-hunter with
you, a man who knows the frontier?"

"Yes.  Jude Pilchuck."

"Did he stand for the women coming?"

"I guess he had no choice," rejoined Tom.

"Humph!  How long have you been on the river?"

"Two days."

"Seen any other outfits?"

"No.  But Pilchuck said there were a couple down the river."

"Awhuh," said Dunn, running a stubby, powerful hand through his
beard.  He seemed concerned.  "You see, Doan, we've been in the
buffalo country since last fall.  And we've sure had it rough.
Poor luck on our fall hunt.  That was over on the Brazos.  Kiowa
Indians on the rampage.  Our winter hunt we made on the line of
Indian Territory.  We didn't know it was against the law to kill
buffalo in the Territory.  The officers took our hides.  Then we'd
got our spring hunt started fine--west of here forty miles or so.
Had five hundred hides.  And they were stolen."

"You don't say!" exclaimed Tom, astonished.  "Who'd be so low down
as to steal hides?"

"Who?" snorted Dunn, with fire in his small eyes.  "We don't know.
The soldiers don't know.  They SAY the thieves are Indians.  But
I'm one who believes they are white."

Tom immediately grasped the serious nature of this information.
The difficulties and dangers of hide-hunting began to assume large
proportions.

"Well, you must tell Hudnall and Pilchuck all about this," he said.

Just then Sally called out sweetly, "Tom--oh, Tom--wouldn't your
visitors like a bite to eat?"

"Reckon they would, miss, thanks to you," shouted Dunn, answering
for himself.  As for Ory Tacks, he appeared overcome, either by the
immediate prospect of food, or by going into the presence of the
beautiful young lady.  Tom noted that he at once dropped his task
of helping Dunn and bent eager energies to the improvement of his
personal appearance.  Dunn and Tom had seated themselves before Ory
joined them, but when he did come he was manifestly bent on making
a great impression.

"Miss Hudnall--my nephew, Ory Tacks," announced Dunn, with quaint
formality.

"What's the name?" queried Sally, incredulously, as if she had not
heard aright.

"Orville Tacks--at your service, Miss Hudnall," replied the young
man, elaborately.  "I am much obliged to meet you."

Sally took him in with keen, doubtful gaze, and evidently, when she
could convince herself that he was not making fun at her expense,
gravitated to a perception of easy conquest.  Tom saw that this was
a paramount issue with Sally.  Probably later she might awake to a
humorous appreciation of this young gentleman.

Tom soon left the newcomers to their camp tasks, and went about his
own, which for the most part consisted of an alert watchfulness.
Early in the afternoon the distant boom-boom of the big buffalo
guns ceased to break the drowsy silence.  The hours wore away.
When, at time of sunset, Tom returned from his last survey of the
plains, it was to find Hudnall and his hunter comrades in camp.
Pilchuck was on the way back with a load of fifty-six hides.  Just
as twilight fell he called from the opposite bank that he would
need help at the steep place.  All hands pulled and hauled the
wagon over the obstacle; and hard upon that incident came Mrs.
Hudnall's cheery call to supper.

Tom watched and listened with more than his usual attentiveness.
Hudnall was radiant.  This day's work had been good.  For a man of
his tremendous strength and endurance the extreme of toil was no
hindrance.  He was like one that had found a gold mine.  Burn
Hudnall reflected his father's spirit.  Pilchuck ate in silence,
not affected by their undisguised elation.  Stronghurl would have
been dense indeed, in the face of Sally's overtures, not to sense a
rival in Ory Tacks.  This individual almost ate out of Sally's
hand.  Dunn presented a rather gloomy front.  Manifestly he had not
yet told Hudnall of his misfortunes.

After supper it took the men two hours of labor to peg out the
hides.  All the available space in the grove was blanketed with
buffalo skins, with narrow lanes between.  Before this work was
accomplished the women had gone to bed.  At the camp fire which Tom
replenished, Dunn recounted to Hudnall and Pilchuck the same news
he had told Tom, except that he omitted comment on the presence of
the women.

To Tom's surprise, Hudnall took Dunn's story lightly.  He did not
appear to grasp any serious menace, and he dismissed Dunn's loss
with brief words:  "Hard luck!  But you can make it up soon.  Throw
in with me.  The more the merrier, an' the stronger we'll be."

"How about your supplies?" queried Dunn.

"Plenty for two months.  An' we'll be freightin' out hides before
that."

"All right, Clark, I'll throw in with your outfit huntin' for
myself, of course, an' payin' my share," replied Dunn, slowly, as
if the matter was weighty.  "But I hope you don't mind my talkin'
out straight about your women."

"No, you can talk straight about anyone or anythin' to me."

"You want to send your women back or take them to Fort Elliott,"
returned Dunn, brusquely.

"Dunn, I won't do anythin' of the kind," retorted Hudnall, bluntly.

"Well, the soldiers will do it for you, if they happen to come
along," said Dunn, just as bluntly.  "It's your own business.  I'm
not trying to interfere in your affairs.  But women don't belong on
such a huntin' trip as this summer will see.  My idea, talking
straight, is that Mr. Pilchuck here should have warned you and made
you leave the women back in the settlement."

"Wal, I gave Hudnall a hunch all right, but he wouldn't listen,"
declared the scout.

"You didn't give me any such damn thing," shouted Hudnall angrily.

Then followed a hot argument that in Tom's opinion ended in the
conviction that Pilchuck had not told all he knew.

"Well, if that's what, I reckon it doesn't make any difference to
me," said Hudnall, finally.  "I wanted wife an' Sally with me.  An'
if I was comin' at all they were comin' too.  We're huntin'
buffalo, yes, for a while--as long as there's money in it.  But
what we're huntin' most is a farm."

"Now, Hudnall, listen," responded Dunn, curtly.  "I'm not tryin' to
boss your outfit.  After this I'll have no more to say. . . .  I've
been six months at this hide-huntin' an' I know what I'm talkin'
about.  The great massed herd of buffalo is south of here, on the
Red River, along under the rim of the Staked Plain.  You think this
herd here is big.  Say, this is a straggler bunch.  There's a
thousand times as many buffalo down on the Red. . . .  There's
where the most of the hide-hunters are and there the Comanches and
Kiowas are on the war-path.  I've met hunters who claim this main
herd will reach here this spring, along in May.  But I say that
great herd will never again get this far north.  If you want hide-
huntin' for big money, then you've got to pull stakes for the Red
River."

"By thunder! we'll pull then," boomed Hudnall.

"Reckon we've got some good huntin' here, as long as this bunch
hangs around the water," interposed Pilchuck.  "We've got it 'most
all to ourselves."

"That's sense," said Dunn, conclusively.  "I'll be glad to stay.
But when we do pull for the Staked Plain country you want to look
for some wild times.  There'll be hell along the Red River this
summer."


In the swiftly flying days that succeeded Dunn's joining Hudnall's
outfit Tom developed rapidly into a hunter and skinner of buffalo.
He was never an expert shot with the heavy Sharps, but he made up
in horsemanship and daring what he lacked as a marksman.  If a man
had nerve he did not need to be skillful with the rifle.  It was as
a skinner, however, that Tom excelled all of Hudnall's men.  Tom
had been a wonderful husker of corn; he had been something of a
blacksmith.  His hands were large and powerful, and these
qualifications, combined with deftness, bade fair to make him a
record skinner.

The Hudnall outfit followed the other outfits, which they never
caught up with, south along the stream in the rear of this herd of
buffalo.  Neither Dunn nor Pilchuck knew for certain that the
stream flowed into the Red River, but as the days grew into weeks
they inclined more and more to that opinion.  If it was so, luck
was merely with them.  Slowly the herd gave way, running, when
hunted, some miles to the south, and next day always grazing east
to the river.  The morning came, however, when the herd did not
appear.  Pilchuck rode thirty miles south without success.  He was
of the opinion, and Dunn agreed with him, that the buffalo had at
last made for the Red River.  So that night plan was made to
abandon hunting for the present and to travel south in search of
the main herd.

Tom took stock of his achievements, and was exceedingly amazed and
exultant.  How quickly it seemed that small figures augmented to
larger ones!

He had hunted, in all, twenty-four days.  Three hundred and sixty
buffalo had fallen to his credit.  But that was not all.  It was
the skinning which he was paid for, and he had skinned four hundred
and eighty-two buffalo--an average of twenty a day.  Hudnall owed
him then one hundred forty-four dollars and sixty cents.  Tom had
cheerfully and gratefully worked on a farm for twenty dollars a
month.  This piling up of money was incredible.  He was dazzled.
Suppose he hunted and skinned buffalo for a whole year!  The
prospect quite overwhelmed him.  Moreover, the camp life, the open
wilderness, the hard riding and the thrill of the chase--these had
worked on him insensibly, until before he realized it he was
changed.



CHAPTER V


There was just daylight enough to discern objects when Milly Fayre
peeped out of the wagon, hoping against hope that she would be able
to wave a farewell to the young man, Tom Doan.  She knew his name
and the names of all the Hudnall party.  For some reason her
stepfather was immensely curious about other outfits, yet avoided
all possible contact with them.

But no one in Hudnall's camp appeared to be stirring.  The
obscurity of the gray dawn soon swallowed the grove of trees and
the prairie schooners.  Milly lay back in her bed in the bottom of
the wagon and closed her eyes.  Sleep would not come again.  The
rattle of wagon trappings, the roll of the crunching wheels, and
the trotting clip-clop of hoofs not only prevented slumber, but
also assured her that the dreaded journey down into the prairie had
begun in reality.

This journey had only one pleasing prospect--and that was a hope,
forlorn at best, of somewhere again seeing the tall, handsome
stranger who had spoken so kindly to her and gazed at her with such
thoughtful eyes.

Not that she hoped for anything beyond just seeing him!  She would
be grateful for that.  Her stepfather would not permit any
friendships, let alone acquaintances, with buffalo-hunters.  Five
weeks with this stepfather had taught her much, and she feared him.
Last night his insulting speech before Tom Doan had created in
Milly the nucleus of a revolt.  She dared to imagine a time might
come, in another year when she became of age, that would give her
freedom.

The meeting with Tom Doan last night had occasioned, all in twelve
hours, a change in Milly Fayre.  His look had haunted her, and even
in the kindly darkness it had power to bring the blood to her face.
Then his words so full of fear and reproach--"I may never see you
again!"--they had awakened Milly's heart.  No matter what had
inspired them!  Yet she could harbor no doubt of this fine-spoken,
clear-eyed young man.  He was earnest.  He meant that not to see
her again would cause him regret.  What would it mean to her--never
to see him again?  She could not tell.  But seeing him once had
lightened her burden.

So in Milly Fayre there was born a dream.  Hard work on a farm had
been her portion--hard work in addition to the long journey to and
from school.  She did not remember her father, who had been one of
the missing in the war.  It had been a tragedy, when she was
sixteen, for her mother to marry Randall Jett, and then live only a
few months.  Milly had no relatives.  Boys and men had tormented
her with their advances, and their importunities, like the life she
had been forced to lead, had not brought any brightness.  Relief
indeed had been hers during those months when her stepfather had
been absent hunting buffalo.  But in March he had returned with
another wife, a woman hard featured and coarse and unreasonably
jealous of Milly.  He had sold the little Missouri farm and brought
his wife and Milly south, inflamed by his prospects of gaining
riches in the buffalo fields.

From the start Milly had dreaded that journey.  But she could not
resist.  She was in Randall Jett's charge.  Besides, she had
nowhere to go; she knew nothing except the work that fell to the
lot of a daughter of the farm.  She had been apathetic, given to
broodings and a growing tendency toward morbidness.  All the days
of that traveling southward had been alike, until there came the
one on which her kindness to a horse had brought her face to face
with Tom Doan.  What was it that had made him different?  Had the
meeting been only last night?

The wagon rolled on down the uneven road, and the sudden lighting
of the canvas indicated that the sun had risen.  Milly heard the
rattling of the harness on the horses.  One of the wagons, that one
driven by Jett, was close behind.

Movement and sound of travel became more bearable as Milly pondered
over the difference one day had wrought.  It was better that she
was going on the road of the hide-hunters, for Tom Doan was one of
them.  Every thought augmented something vague and deep that
baffled her.  One moment she would dream of yesterday--that
incident of casual meeting, suddenly to become one of strangely
locked eyes--how all day she had watched Hudnall's camp for sight
of the tall young man--how she had listened to Jett's gossip with
his men about the other outfits--how thrilled she had been when she
had met Tom Doan again.  It had not been altogether fear of her
stepfather that had made her run off from this outspoken, keen-eyed
young man.  She had been suddenly beset by unfamiliar emotions.
The touch of his hands--his look--his speech!  Milly felt again the
uplift of her heart, the swell of breast, the tingling race of
blood, the swift, vague, fearful thoughts.

The next moment Milly would try to drive away the sweet insidious
musing, to ponder over her presence there in this rattling wagon,
and what might be in store for her.  There had been a break in the
complexity of her situation.  Something, a new spirit, seemed
stirring in her.  If she was glad of anything it was for the hours
in which she could think.  This canvas-topped wagon was her house
of one room, and when she was inside, with the openings laced, she
felt the solitude her soul needed.  For one thing, Jett never
objected to her seeking the privacy of her abode; and she now, with
her new-born intuition, sensed that it was because he did not like
to see the men watching her.  Yet he watched her himself with his
big hard blue eyes.  Tom Doan's eyes had not been like that.  She
could think of them and imagine them, so kindly piercing and
appealing.

This drifting from conjectures and broodings into a vague sort of
enchanting reverie was a novel experience for Milly.  She resisted
a while, then yielded to it.  Happiness abided therein.  She must
cultivate such easy means of forgetting the actual.


Milly's wagon lumbered on over the uneven road, and just when she
imagined she could no longer stand the jolting and confinement, it
halted.

She heard Jett's gruff voice, the scrape of the brakes on the wagon
behind, and then the unsnapping of harness buckles and the clinking
thud of heavy cooking-ware thrown to the ground.  Milly opened the
canvas slit at the back of her wagon, and taking up the bag that
contained her mirror, brush and comb, soap, towel, and other
necessities, she spread the flaps of the door and stepped down to
the ground.

Halt had been made at the edge of a clump of trees in a dry arroyo.
It was hot, and Milly decided she would put on her sunbonnet as
soon as she had washed her face and combed her hair.

"Mawin', girl," drawled a lazy voice.  It came from the man,
Catlee, who had driven her wagon.  He was a swarthy fellow of
perhaps forty years, rugged of build, garbed as a teamster, with a
lined face that seemed a record of violent life.  Yet Milly had not
instinctively shrunk from him as from the others.

"Good morning, Mr. Catlee," she responded.  "Can I get some water?"

"Shore, miss.  I'll hev it for you in a jiffy," he volunteered, and
stepping up on the hub of a front wheel he rummaged under the seat,
to fetch forth a basin.  This he held under a keg that was wired to
the side of the wagon.

"Dry camp, Catlee," spoke up a gruff voice from behind.  "Go easy
on the water."

"All right, boss, easy it is," he replied, as he twisted a peg out
of the keg.  He winked at Milly and deliberately let the water pour
out until the basin was full.  This he set on a box in the shade of
the wagon.  "Thar you are, miss."

Milly thanked him and proceeded leisurely about her ablutions.  She
knew there was a sharp eye upon her every move and was ready for
the gruff voice when it called out:  "Rustle, you Milly.  Help
here, an' never mind your good looks!"

Milly minded them so little that she scarcely looked at herself in
the mirror; and when Jett reminded her of them, which he was always
doing, she wished that she was ugly.  Presently, donning the
sunbonnet, which served the double duty of shading her eyes from
the hot glare and hiding her face, she turned to help at the camp-
fire tasks.

Mrs. Jett, Milly's stepmother, was on her knees before a panful of
flour and water, which she was mixing into biscuit dough.  The sun
did not bother her, apparently, for she was bareheaded.  She was a
handsome woman, still young, dark, full faced, with regular
features and an expression of sullenness.

Jett strode around the place, from wagon to fire, his hands quick
and strong to perform two things at once.  His eyes, too, with
their hard blue light, roved everywhere.  They were eyes of
suspicion.  This man was looking for untoward reactions in the
people around him.

Everybody worked speedily, not with the good will of a camp party
that was wholesome and happy, bent on an enterprise hopeful, even
if dangerous, but as if dominated by a driving spirit.  Very soon
the meal was ready, and the men extended pan and cup for their
portion, which was served by Mrs. Jett.

"Eat, girl," called Jett, peremptorily.

Milly was hungry enough, albeit she had been slow and, receiving
her food and drink, she sat down upon a sack of grain.  While she
ate she watched from under the wide rim of her sun-bonnet.

Did she imagine a subtle change had come over these men, now that
the journey toward the wild buffalo country had begun?  Follonsbee
had been with Jett before and evidently had the leader's
confidence, as was evinced by the many whispered consultations
Milly had observed.  He was a tall, spare man, with evil face, red
from liquor and exposure, and eyes that Milly had never looked into
twice.  Pruitt had lately joined the little caravan.  Small of
stature, though hardy, and with a sallow face remarkable in that
its pointed chin was out of line with the bulging forehead, he
presented an even more repulsive appearance than Follonsbee.  He
was a rebel and lost no opportunity to let that fact be known.

These men were buffalo-hunters, obsessed with the idea of large
sums of money to be made from the sale of hides.  From what little
Milly had been able to learn, all the men except Catlee were to
share equally in the proceeds of the hunt.  Milly had several times
heard argument to that effect--argument always discontinued when
she came within hearing.

Milly had become curious about her stepfather and his men.  This
interest of hers dated back no farther than yesterday, when her
meeting with Tom Doan, and a few words exchanged with the pleasant
Mrs. Hudnall, and her eager watching of the Hudnall camp, had
showed her plainly that Jett's was a different kind of outfit.  No
good humor, no kindliness, no gay words or pleasant laughs, no
evidence of wholesome anticipation!  Jett had never been a man she
could care for, yet up to the last few weeks he had been endurable.
The force of him had changed with the advent of these other men and
the journey into unsettled country.  In him Milly now began to
sense something sinister.

They did not speak often.  The business of eating and the hurry
maintained by Jett were not altogether cause for this taciturnity.
Catlee was the only one who occasionally made a casual remark, and
then no one appeared to hear him.

"Rustle along, you-all," ordered Jett, gruffly, as he rose from his
meal.

"Do you aim to camp at Wade's Crossin' tonight?" queried
Follonsbee.

"No.  We'll water an' get wood there, an' go on," returned Jett,
briefly.

The other men made no comment, and presently they rose, to set
about their tasks.  The horses were hitched up while munching their
grain out of the nose bags.  Milly wiped the plates and utensils
that Mrs. Jett hurriedly and silently washed.

"Mother, I--I wish we were not going on this hunt," ventured Milly,
at last, for no other reason than that she could not stand the
silence.

"I'm not your mother," replied the woman, tersely.  "Call me Jane,
if the name Mrs. Jett makes you jealous?"

"Jealous?  Why should I be jealous of that name?" asked Milly, in
slow surprise.

"You're no more related to Jett than I am," said Mrs. Jett,
pondering darkly.  She seemed a thick-minded person.  "For my part,
I don't like the hunt, either.  I told Jett so, an' he said, 'Like
it or lump it, you're goin'.'  I reckon you'd better keep your
mouth shut."

Milly did not need such admonition, so far as her stepfather was
concerned.  But from that moment she decided to keep both eyes and
ears open.  Jett's domineering way might be responsible for the
discontent of his wife and the taciturnity of his men.

When all was in readiness to resume the journey Milly asked Jett if
she could ride on the seat with the driver.

"Reckon not," answered Jett, as he clambered to his own seat.

"But my back gets tired.  I can't lie down all the time,"
remonstrated Milly.

"Jane, you ride with Catlee an' let Milly come with me," said Jett.

"Like hob!" sneered his wife, with a sudden malignant flash of eyes
that was a revelation to Milly.  "Wouldn't you like that fine now,
Rand Jett?"

"Shut up!" returned Jett, in mingled anger and discomfiture.

"You're mighty afraid some man will look at that girl," she went
on, regardless of his gathering frown.  "How's she ever goin' to
get a husband?"

Jett glared at her and ground his teeth.

"Oh, I see," continued Mrs. Jett, without lowering her strident
voice.  "She AIN'T goin' to get a husband if YOU can help it.  I've
had that hunch before."

"Will you shut up?" shouted Jett, furiously.

Whereupon the woman lifted herself to the seat beside him.  Jett
started his team out toward the road.  As Pruitt and Follonsbee had
driven ahead in their wagon, Milly was left alone with Catlee, who
seemed to be both amused and sympathetic.

"Climb up heah, miss," said he.

Milly hesitated, and then suddenly the new turn of her mind
obstructed her old habit of obedience and she nimbly stepped to a
seat beside the driver.

"Reckon it'll be warmer out heah in the sun, but there's a breeze
an' you can see around," he said.

"It's much nicer."

Catlee plied his long lash, cracking it over the horses without
touching them, and they moved off in easy trot.  The road lay
downhill, and ahead the gray prairie rolled in undulating vast
stretches to the horizon.

"Are we going to Indian Territory?" Milly asked the driver.

"Miss, we're in the Territory now," he replied.  "I don't know
when, but in a few days we'll cross the line into the Panhandle of
Texas."

"Is that where the buffalo are?"

"I ain't shore aboot that.  I heard Jett say the big herd would be
comin' north an' likely run into the hunters somewheres near Red
River."

"Will all the hunters go to the same place?"

"Shore they will, an' that'll be where the buffalo are."

Milly did not analyze the vague hope that mounted in her breast.
She felt surprised to find she wanted to talk, to learn things.

"Is this strange country to you?" she asked.

"Shore is, miss.  I never was west of the Missouri till this trip.
Reckon it's goin' to be hard.  I met some hunters last night.  They
was celebratin' their arrival in town, an' I couldn't take too
great stock in their talk.  But shore they said it was bad down
heah where we're goin'.  I'm afraid it ain't no place for a girl
like you."

"I'm afraid so, too," said Milly.

"Jett ain't your real father?" queried Catlee.

"He's my stepfather," replied Milly, and then in a few words she
told Catlee about herself, from the time her mother had married
Jett.

"Well, well, that accounts," rejoined Catlee, in tones unmistakably
kind.  But he did not vouchsafe to explain what he meant.  Indeed,
her simple story seemed to have silenced him.  Yet more than before
she felt his sympathy.  It struck her singularly that he had
stopped talking because he might have committed himself to some
word against her stepfather.

Thereafter Milly kept the conversation from personalities, and
during the afternoon ride she talked at intervals and then watched
the dim horizon receding always with its beckoning mystery.

Sunset time found Jett's caravan descending a long gradual slope
ending in a timbered strip that marked the course of a stream.
Catlee pointed out two camps to Milly.  White wagons stood out
against the woodland; fires were twinkling; smoke was rising.  The
place appeared pleasant and sheltered.  Jett drove across the
stream, unhitched the horses, and he and Follonsbee watered them
and filled the kegs while Pruitt and Catlee gathered firewood,
which was tied on behind the wagons.

One of the campers below the crossing came out in the open to
halloo at Jett, more in friendly salutation than otherwise.  Jett
did not reply.  He lost no time hooking up traces and harness and
getting under way.  He led on until nearly dark and halted at a low
place where grass appeared abundant.

"Why didn't my stepfather camp back there with the other outfits?"
queried Milly, as Catlee halted his team.

"Shore he's not sociable, an' he's bent on travelin' as far every
day as possible," replied the driver.

While Milly was busily engaged helping Mrs. Jett round the camp
fire, darkness settled.  Coyotes were yelping.  A night wind rose
and, sweeping down into the shallow coulee, it sent the white
sparks flying.  The morose mood of the travelers persisted.  After
supper was over and the tasks were finished Milly climbed to the
seat of her wagon and sat there.  It was out of earshot of the camp
fire.  Jett's wagon had been drawn up close beside the one she
occupied.  Heretofore camp had always been pitched in a sheltered
place, in a grove or under the lea of a wooded hill.  This site was
out on the open prairie.  The wind swept around and under the
wagon, and it needed only a little more force to make it moan.  But
few stars lightened the cloudy sky.  Lonesome, dismal, and
forbidding, this prairie land increased Milly's apprehensions.  She
tried not to think of the future.  Always before she had been dully
resigned to a gray prospect.  But now a consciousness grew that she
could not go on forever like this, even if her situation did not
grow worse.  Of that, she had no doubt.  Someone had told her that
when she was eighteen years old she would be free to look out for
herself.  Yet even so, what could she do?  She worked as hard for
the Jetts as she would have to work for anyone else.  Perhaps
eventually she might get a place with a nice family like the
Hudnalls.  Suddenly the thought of Tom Doan flashed into her mind,
and then of marriage.  Her face burned.  She hid it, fearful that
even under cover of night someone might see her and read her
thoughts.  No use to try to repudiate them!  She yearned for the
companionship of women who would be kind to her, for a home, and
for love.

These thoughts became torture for Milly, but only so long as she
strove against them.  She had awakened.  She could not be deprived
of her feelings and hopes.  Thus her habitual morbid brooding came
to have a rival for the possession of her mind.  When she went to
bed that night she felt not only the insidious inception of a
revolt, but also a realization that strength was coming from
somewhere, as if with the magic of these new thoughts.


Days passed--days that dragged on with the interminable riding over
the widening prairie--with the monotony of camp tasks, and the
relief of oblivion in sleep.

Milly always saw the sun rise and set, and these were the only
incidents of the day in which she found pleasure.  She had
exhausted Catlee's fund of stories and his limited knowledge of the
frontier.  He was the only one in the outfit that she could or
would talk to.  Follonsbee was manifestly a woman-hater.  Pruitt
had twice approached her, agreeably enough, yet offensive through
his appearance; and she had cut his overtures short.  Mrs. Jett's
hawk eyes never failed to take note of any movement on her
husband's part in Milly's direction, which notice finally had the
effect of making Jett surlily aloof.  Yet there was that in his
look which made Milly shrink.  As days and miles passed behind,
Jett manifestly grew away from the character that had seemed to be
his when Milly's mother married him.  Here in this environment
harshness and violence, and a subtle menace, appeared natural in
him.

Not a day went by now that Jett did not overtake and pass an outfit
of two or more wagons bound for the hunting fields.  These he
passed on the road or avoided at camping grounds.  When, however,
he met a freighter going out with buffalo hides, he always had
spare time to halt and talk.

Jett pushed on.  His teams were young and powerful, and he carried
grain to feed them, thus keeping up their strength while pushing
them to the limit.  The gray rolling expanse of Indian Territory
changed to the greener, more undulating and ridged vastness of the
Panhandle of Texas.  Where ten days before it had been unusual to
cross one stream in a day's travel, now they crossed several.  All
of these, however, were but shallow creeks or washes.  The trees
along these stream bottoms were green and beautiful, lending
contrast to the waving level of the plains.

Milly conceived the idea that under happy circumstances she would
have found a new joy and freedom in riding down into this
wilderness.


One afternoon, earlier than usual, Jett turned for good off the
road, and following a tree-bordered stream for a couple of miles,
pitched camp in a thick grove, where his wagons and tents could not
readily be seen.  Evidently this was not to be the usual one-night
stand.  If it were possible for Jett to be leisurely, he was so on
this occasion.  After helping unpack the wagons he gave orders to
his men, and then saddling one of the horses he rode away under the
trees.

It was dusk when he returned.  Supper had been timed for his
arrival.  About him at this moment there was an expansion, an
excitement, combined with bluff egotism.  Milly anticipated what he
announced in his big voice.

"Bunch of buffalo waterin' along here.  We've run into the
stragglers.  It'll do to hang at this camp an' hunt while we wait
to see if the big herd runs north."

The announcement did not create any particular interest in his
comrades.  No one shared Jett's strong suppressed feeling.  After
supper he superintended the loading of shells and sharpening of
knives, and the overlooking of the heavy rifles.

"The old needle gun for me!" he exclaimed.  "Most hunters favor the
big fifty."

"Wal, the fifty's got it all over any other guns fer shootin' buffs
at close range," responded Follonsbee.

"We might have to shoot some other critters at long range--
redskins, for instance," commented the leader, sardonically.

Jett's superabundant vitality and force could not be repressed on
this occasion.  Apparently the end of the long journey had been
cause for elation and anticipation, and also for an indulgence in
drink.  Milly had known before that Jett was addicted to the
bottle.  Under its influence, however, he appeared less harsh and
hard.  It tempered the iron quality in him.  Likewise