and the rest of the company had discussed the
matter very gravely, and had solemnly asked him on behalf of the whole
tribe, to find Dusty Star, and beg him to come back, Lone Chief shook
his head, and swept his hand towards the West.

"Out there," he said, "is the land of the buffalo; and beyond the land
of the buffalo, is the land of the timber-wolves, and the country of the
Cariboo. Dusty Star might have stayed with the buffalo; but the wolf
would seek his own kindred; and the wolf-kindred make long journeys on
the trails of the Cariboo. How do I know that they have not taken a
trail--Dusty Star and the Wolf? And the journeying Cariboo have a
thousand trails to the great Lake of the sunset where all trails have an
end."

Yet though Lone Chief spoke so discouragingly, throwing whole prairies
along his tongue, to show the difficulty of finding what had once
disappeared into them, he knew in his heart that the Chief would still
believe him capable of finding Dusty Star. And so when Spotted Eagle
again urged him earnestly to go out into the West to recover the lost
medicine, Lone Chief shook his head despondingly, but nevertheless
promised to go.

The next morning, very early, anxiously watching eyes saw the famous
medicine man issue from his tepee, and travel steadily westward, till
the enormous distances of the prairie swallowed him up.

Fortunately for Lone Chief, he was accustomed to long journeys. But
whereas, in the journeys he was used to making, he went for no
particular reason except that the great distances had made a nest in his
brain and kept chirping there like birds, the present journey he was
taking for a very big reason, firmly believing that unless he could find
Dusty Star a terrible fate must fall upon his tribe.

Day after day, he travelled west, on and on towards the sunset-place,
deeper and deeper into the heart of the old buffalo land. And he saw the
great herds of buffalo, thousands and thousands of them, more than man
could count; because it was a time long and long ago before the White
Man had become Lord of the prairie, and the freight cars had thundered
their cotton-goods and kerosene along the iron trails of the Middle
West.

But Lone Chief did not waste his time among the buffalo, because he knew
that Dusty Star would not be there, that it was only in the timber-wolf
country that he would have a chance to come upon him, if he had not
already started for the land of the Cariboo. But if y