Chapter TWO

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

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

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

Shag tipped his massive head sideways with drowsy inquiry, the heavy lids opening in unwilling laziness. A muffled, palpitating beat was in the sulky morning air; it was like the monotonous thump of a war drum over on the Reserve.

"What is it?" queried the Bull, raising his head with full-aged dignity.

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

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

"You needn't do that," sneered A'tim; "not much grass sticks to your coat now."

"No, it's only force of habit," grunted Shag. "And to think of the time when my beautiful hair was the envy of the whole range; for I was a Silk-Coat, you know--a rare thing in Bulls, to be sure. But I'm not that now; when I look in the lake waters and see only this miserable ruff about my neck, and scant tuft on my tail, I feel sad--feel ashamed. The tongue of the lake tells me all that, Brother, so say no more about it."

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

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

"Always of blood," muttered the Bull to himself--"always of blood and meat eating; Wolf and Dog; Dog-Wolf and Man--always full of the blood thought and the desire for a Kill."

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

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

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

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

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

"Now the Buffalo see Eagle Shoe," continued Shag; "but they have no wisdom; they but see some one thing that has life. Perhaps they will even say: 'It is only old Shag, the Outcast; let us feed in peace.' Their eyes are the eyes of Calves, and their noses tell them nothing, for the hunt Man is down Wind, is he not, A'tim?"

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

"Yes, even so," continued Shag. "See how gently he moves toward them. Danger! One Bull's head is up; he has discovered that it is not a Buffalo; now he has whispered to the others, for they are moving slowly. Thou hast spoken truth, A'tim--a strange thing for a Dog-Wolf, too," he muttered to himself--"it _will_ be a mighty Kill. How slowly the Herd moves; they are not afraid of the one animal, whatever it is--one, did I say, A'tim? Look you, Brother, for you have the Wolf-eyes: are there not three now--three Kill drivers?"

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

"I don't like it," muttered Shag; "the Palefaces, with their many-breathed Fire-sticks, have killed my people, and have driven them up from the South, and now they are gathered together in a few mighty Herds such as this. The Redmen, who have not these Fire-sticks, but have the cunning of Wolves, see all this, and say they too must slay a whole Herd, where before they killed but two or three. We'll soon be all gone--we, who are the meat food of these Redmen, we'll soon be all gone, and then what will they do, A'tim? Will they kill each other, as your people do when the famine gets into their hearts? Or will they just lie down and die, as my people do when the White Storm blots out all the grass food?"

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

The Outcasts saw the two Indians ride into the eye of the Wind that blew up from the South across the Herd. As a sudden squall ripples a smooth lake, so the scent of the Redmen carried by the prairie breeze stirred the sea of brown-backed Buffalo.

"Now they will stampede," quoth Shag, eying this man[oe]uver with heavy intentness.

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

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

"Yes," concurred A'tim, "I see it; they'll come closer and closer together, these two run of bushes, and at the far end there will be but a narrow trail like a coulee, and after that they drop into Stone Hill Pit--the Buffalo Pound. I saw the Indians building these trail-slides last night. It will be a great Run--a mighty Kill!"

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

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

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

The beaten earth groaned in hollow misery; the thrusting weight of half a thousand head made its breast ache; its plaintive protest grew into an angry roar like incessant thunder; the dust, sharp-hoof-pounded, rose like a hot breath, and hung foglike over the troubled sea of rocking bodies.

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

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

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

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

Wedge-shaped the Herd raced for the leading horseman; hindermost labored the fatted bulls, but in front thundered the leader.

With hawk eye, Eagle Shoe swept the stockade wall for the opening through which he was to slip and let the Herd gallop on to their destruction. Hi, yi! there it was. Sharp to the left, swinging his body far out on the side to steady the careening cayuse, he turned. As he shot through the opening two Indians rose up, and their guns belched a red repulse in the faces of the Buffalo.

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

Fear rode on the backs of the striding beasts, and they were afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop; there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call, the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in front beckoned and smiled a lie of safe passage; the Pound, the death-pit, dug on its rounded breast, lay hushed in silent ambush, and the Bull Leader saw only a narrow gate at the far end of the fast-closing wings. Soon he would lead all this mighty Herd that had grown into his charge past the walls that were alive with evil spirits, and out to the prairie beyond.

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

Behind the Bull, with implicit faith, pressed the Herd. Only a short distance reached the dreaded yellow-leafed walls that hid the Man enemy. In six breaths he would have passed the narrow mouth, and all his heart's pride would stream out from that death gauntlet to the broad Range that called to him.

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

Inferno upon earth was born in an instant; up from the sun smile of the prairie rose a shadow of fiends. The walls of the pit, large as the Coliseum, were lined with Redskins of the murder caste. Bow-strings twanged; dag-spears, long-handled, were driven with vengeful swish into the bellowing mob of crazed Buffalo. A sulphurous cloud of gun smoke settled over the pit. Of a verity it was a carnival of demons. Surely it was a mighty Kill! Surely it was a blood fresco on the beautiful earth.

Some strong animals, not shattered in their fall, rushed about the pit in erratic frenzy, like victims in a Roman arena. The mocking walls rose on every side, grim, unsurmountable, and thrust the captives back into the shambles; jagged flint arrow-heads stung their hearts like angry serpents. Oh, blessed quick death! better than the smother and trample that beat out the lives of others, inch by inch. The gun fire belched hot in their faces; the bellowing of Bulls almost hushed the Hunt-Cry of the Redman.

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

At last no Buffalo chased hopelessly over the dead bodies of his fellows, seeking a vain safety; all were stricken to their death--not one had escaped. No bellowing was heard now; nothing but the victory clamor of the rabble and the gasping choke of dying Buffalo. Out on the prairie the silly Calf wandered like a lost babe--the only survivor of a king-led Herd.

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

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

"It's dreadful!" lamented Shag; "it's dreadful! I can't eat--the grass tastes of blood, for this Kill has been of my kind. It is different with you, A'tim. I will sleep here in this near-by coulee, and when you have feasted, Dog Brother, come back to me, for I am sad and my heart is heavy; come back, A'tim, and sleep warm against my side."

Far into the night, by the light of dry willow fires, like dancing ghouls, the Squaws cut and hacked and laid bare the bones that had been joyous in much life at sunrise.

Over the camp-fires, for long hours, the pots boiled and bubbled with the cooking meat--the delicious Buffalo flesh that was meat and bread to the Indians; and beside the glowing embers huge joints spitted on sharp sticks sizzled and threw off a perfume that came to the starved nostrils of A'tim, and almost crazed him with eager hunger.

Would the Indians never cease eating? he wondered. Close-crept, he watched Eagle Shoe take a piece of the luscious "back fat"--ah, well A'tim knew the loin!--and devour it greedily. How like vultures these feeders were, A'tim thought. At least a dozen times each Indian returned to the flesh-pots, the Dog-Wolf felt sure. "They are like Wolves," he snarled; "well I know them. For days and days they will live on nothing, even as a Wolf; then, when the Kill is on, they will gorge until they are stupid. E-u-h-ha! but when they become stupid from this feeding surely I will also feast; wait, hunger-pain, wait just a little."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then again the two Outcasts, the one for whom the blood horror had colored the moon red, and the other with a new joy of meat fullness, slumbered together in the little coulee by the Buffalo Pound.