the throats of
a famished pack which had found a promising trail. Besides, the Yellow
Dogs had more important matters to consider. Now or never the attack
upon Dusty Star's people must be made. The moon was favourable now. She
did not rise until a sufficiently long time after sunset to enable them
to approach the enemy's camp under cover of the dark, so as to be able
to deliver the long-planned attack in the growing light of her beams.
Without waiting for any further delay, small scouting parties were
ordered to go on ahead; and the advance began.

But there were other scouts abroad, of which neither the Yellow Dogs nor
their intended victims were aware. Every thicket, and matted tangle of
prairie grass, seemed to conceal one. There was hardly a hollow that did
not harbour some crouching form; and the prairie buttes had eyes. As the
great Yellow Dog war party moved stealthily forwards, it was shadowed by
another company more numerous and more stealthy still. This second
company was roughly divided into three main bodies, with small
intermediate bands which seemed to move independently, but which were in
reality in touch with one or other of the larger groups.

The night was windless and very still, the few vagrant wafts of air
which occasionally stirred the prairie grasses, flowing softly from the
west. The older and more experienced of the Yellow Dog warriors could
not understand the night. From time to time they seemed to catch a faint
wolf smell from the west. And the stillness seemed full of some
invisible motion as if the very prairies moved. Moreover it was very
plain that the ponies were unusually restless. Now one, now another,
would snort and whinney, or shy at some vague shadow which melted into
the dark.

In the Comanache camp, things were much as they had been for many days
past. A careful watch was still kept towards the north. But the general
opinion was that the Yellow Dogs had delayed their threatened attack so
long that they had at length given up the intention. Spotted Eagle was
in his tepee consulting with one or two other chiefs, when suddenly the
door flap was raised, and Dusty Star stood before them.

The suddenness of his arrival, and the change wrought in his appearance
during his long absence, prevented Spotted Eagle from recognizing in the
tall, imposing-looking youth who now stood before him, the wild boy with
the wolfish ways who had disappeared mysteriously many moons ago.

There was a