t doubled under
him.

She came running back to me, full of savage joy at her Success, and put
her arm under my shoulder and told me to come. Slowly, fast as I could,
I went with her to our prey.

We butchered our buffalo as Auberry had showed me, from the backbone
down, as he sat dead on his forearms, splitting the skin along the
spine, and laying it out for the meat to rest upon. Again I made a fire
by shooting a tow wad into such tinder as we could arrange from my coat
lining, having dried this almost into flame by a burning-glass I made
out of a watch crystal filled with water, not in the least a weak sort
of lens. She ran for fuel, and for water, and now we cooked and ate, the
fresh meat seeming excellent to me. Once more now we moved our camp, the
girl returning for the horse and our scanty belongings.

Always now we ate, haggling out the hump ribs, the tongue, the rich back
fat; so almost immediately we began to gain In strength. All the next
day we worked as we could at drying the meat, and taking the things we
needed from the carcass. We got loose one horn, drying one side of the
head in the fire. I saved carefully all the sinews of the back, knowing
we might need them. Then between us we scraped At the two halves of the
hide, drying it in the sun, fleshing it with our little Indian hoe, and
presently rubbing into it brains from the head of the carcass, as the
hide grew drier in the sun. We were not yet skilled in tanning as the
Indian women are, but we saw that now we would have a house and a bed
apiece, and food, food. We broiled the ribs at our fire, boiled the
broken leg bones in our little kettle. We made fillets of hide to shade
our eyes, she thus binding back the long braids of her hair. We rested
and were comforted. Each hour, it seemed to me, she rounded and became
more beautiful, supple, young, strong--there, in the beginning of the
world. We were rich in these, our belongings, which we shared.

CHAPTER XXVIII

TILL DEATH DO PART

Hitherto, while I was weak, exhausted, and unable to reason beyond the
vague factors of anxiety and dread, she had cared for me simply, as
though she were a young boy and I an older man. The small details of our
daily life she had assumed, because she still was the stronger. Without
plot or plan, and simply through the stern command of necessity, our
interests had been identical, our plans covered us both as one. At
night, for the sake of warmth, we had slept c