of the forest into the waving open stretches which are the
Great Plains all things were hidden by the snow.

Henry from the summit of a little hill saw before him an expanse as
mighty as the sea, and like it in many of its aspects. They told him
that it rolled away to the westward, no man knew how far, as none of
them had ever come to the end of it. In summer it was covered with life.
Here grew thick grass and wild flowers and the buffalo passed in
millions.

It inspired in Henry a certain awe and yet by its very vagueness and
immensity it attracted. Just as he had wished to explore the secrets of
the forest he would like now to tread the Great Plains and find what
they held.

They turned toward the southwest in search of buffalo and were caught in
a great storm of wind and hail. The cold was bitter and the wind cut to
the bone. They were saved from freezing to death only by digging a rude
shelter through the snow into the side of a hill, and there they
crouched for two days with so little food left in their knapsacks, that
without game, they would perish, in a week, of hunger, if the cold did
not get the first chance. The most experienced hunters went forth, but
returned with nothing, thankful for so little a mercy as the ability to
get back to their half-shelter.

Henry at last took his rifle and ventured out alone--the others were too
listless to stop him--and before the noon hour he found a buffalo bull,
some outcast from the herd which had gone southward, struggling in the
snow. The bull was old and lean, and it took two bullets to bring him
down, but his death meant their life and Henry hurried to the camp with
the joyful news. It was clearly recognized that he had saved them, but
no one said anything and Henry was glad of their silence.

When the storm ceased they renewed their journey toward the south with a
plentiful supply of food and not long afterwards the snow began to melt.
Under the influence of a warm wind out of the southwest it disappeared
with marvelous quickness; one day the earth was all white, and the next
it was all brown. The warm wind continued to blow, and then faint
touches of green began to appear in the dead grass; there were delicate
odors, the breath of the great warm south, and they knew that spring was
not far away.

In a week they ran into the buffalo herd, a mighty black mass of moving
millions. The earth rumbled hollowly under the tread of a myriad feet,
and the plain was blac