rrow took up his bow
and bundle, saying to White Otter, "Now we will go."

The two then commenced their long quest in search of the victims which
were to satisfy their ambitions. They followed up the depression in the
plains where they had found the buffalo, gained the timber, and walked
all day under its protecting folds. They were a long way from their
enemies' country, but instinctively began the cautious advance which is
the wild-animal nature of an Indian.

The old buffalo-bulls, elk and deer fled from before them as they
marched. A magpie mocked at them. They stopped while White Otter spoke
harshly to it: "You laugh at us, fool-bird, because we are boys, but you
shall see when we come back that we are warriors. We will have a scalp
to taunt you with. Begone now, before I pierce you with an arrow,
you chattering woman-bird." And the magpie fluttered away before the
unwonted address.

In the late afternoon they saw a band of wolves pull down and kill a
fawn, and ran to it, saying, "See, the Pipe-Bearing Wolf is with us;
he makes the wolves to hunt for us of his clan," and they despoiled the
prey.

Coming to a shallow creek, they took off their moccasins and waded
down it for a mile, when they turned into a dry watercourse, which they
followed up for a long distance, and then stopped in some thick brush
which lined its sides. They sat long together on the edge of the bushes,
scanning with their piercing eyes the sweep of the plains, but nothing
was there to rouse their anxiety. The wild animals were feeding
peacefully, the sun sank to rest, and no sound came to them but the cry
of the night-birds.

When it was quite dark, they made a small fire in the depths of the cut,
threw a small quantity of tobacco into it as a sacrifice, cooked the
venison and went to sleep.

It was more than mere extension of interest with them; it was more
than ambition's haughtiest fight; it was the sun-dried, wind-shriveled,
tried-out atavistic blood-thirst made holy by the approval of the Good
God they knew.

The miniature war-party got at last into the Absaroke country. Before
them lay a big camp--the tepees scattering down the creek-bottom for
miles, until lost at a turn of the timber. Eagerly they studied the cut
and sweep of the land, the way the tepees dotted it, the moving of the
pony herds and the coming and going of the hunters, but most of all the
mischievous wanderings of the restless Indian boys. Their telescopic
eyes