gasped the priest.

"Ha! I have it!" and Pierre turned triumphantly to Father Holland.

"The Lord be praised that poetry's free,
Or you'd bottle it up like a saint's thumb-bone,
That beauty's beauty for eyes that see
Without regard to a priestly gown----"

"Hold on," interrupted Father Holland. "Hold on, Pierre!"

"'Your double-quick Peg
Has a limp of one leg!'

"'Bone' and 'gown' don't fit, Mr. Rhymster."

"Upon my honor! You turned poet, too, Father Holland!" said I. "We might
be on a pilgrimage to Helicon."

"To where?" says Grant, whose knowledge of classics was less than my
own, which was precious little indeed.

"Helicon."

At that Father Holland burst in such roars of laughter, the rhymster
took personal offense, dug his moccasins against the horse's sides and
rode ahead. His fringed leggings were braced straight out in the
stirrups as if he anticipated his broncho transforming the concave into
the convex,--known in the vernacular as "bucking."

"Mad as a hatter," said Grant, inferring the joke was on Pierre. "Let
him be! Let him be! He'll get over it! He's working up his rhymes for
the feast after the buffalo hunt."

And we afterwards got the benefit of those rhymes.

The tenth day west from Pembina our scouts found some herd's footprints
on soggy ground. At once word was sent back to pitch camp on rolling
land. A cordon of carts with shafts turned outward encircled the camping
ground. At one end the animals were tethered, at the other the hunter's
tents were huddled together. All night mongrel curs, tearing about the
enclosure in packs, kept noisy watch. Twice Grant and I went out to
reconnoitre. We saw only a whitish wolf scurrying through the long
grass. Grant thought this had disturbed the dogs; but I was not so sure.
Indeed, I felt prepared to trace features of Le Grand Diable under every
elk-hide, or wolf-skin in which a cunning Indian could be disguised. I
deemed it wise to have a stronger guard and engaged two runners, Ringing
Thunder and Burnt Earth, giving them horses and ordering them to keep
within call during the thick of the hunt.

At daybreak all tents were a beehive of activity. The horses, with
almost human intelligence, were wild to be off. Riders could scarcely
gain saddles, and before feet were well in the stirrups, the bronchos
had reared and bolted away, only to be reined sharply in and brought
back to the ranks. The dogs, too, were mad, tearing