idge, lay the biggest bull of them all, a buffalo
that stirred now and then as if he were glad to rub his body against the
soil, which was rougher there than elsewhere. On the far side of the
prairie, wolves yapped and barked, longing to get at the calves inside
the ring of their elders.

The warriors crept away and began the entire circuit of the open,
looking for the lost trail. It had entered it on the western side, and
it would pass out somewhere, probably on the eastern. Red Eagle,
Blackstaffe and Wyatt themselves came up and directed the chase, but
they were mystified when their runners, completing the entire circling
movement, reported that there was no sign of the trail's reappearance.
Red Eagle, after taking thought, refused to believe it. The fugitive had
surpassing skill, as all of them knew, but a human being could not take
a flight through the air, like an eagle or a wild duck, and leave no
trail behind him. They must have overlooked the traces in the moonlight,
and he sent out the warriors anew, to right and to left.

Henry meanwhile slept the sleep of one who was weary and unafraid. He
had not only the feeling, but the conviction, as he lay down, that he
was within an inviolable ring of sentinels, and having dismissed all
care and apprehension from his mind, he fell into a slumber so deep
that for a long time nothing could disturb it. The yapping and barking
of the wolves fell upon an unhearing ear. The puffings and groanings of
the buffaloes were merely whispers to dull him into more powerful sleep.
When the Indian scouts, not fifty yards away, looked at the body of the
big bull that blocked the path, nothing whispered to him that danger was
near. Nor was the whisper needed, as the danger passed as quickly as it
had come.

He awoke at the first streak of dawn, stirred a little in his blanket,
but did not rise yet. He saw the buffaloes all around him and realized
that his faith in them had not been misplaced. The great bull, like a
black mountain, still barred the path to him.

It was warm and snug in his blanket and he yawned prodigiously. It would
have been pleasant to have remained there a few hours longer, but when
one was pursued by a whole Indian nation he could not remain long in one
place. He took the last strips of venison from his pack and ate them as
he lay. Meanwhile the buffaloes themselves began to move somewhat, as if
they were making ready for their day's work, and Henry wondered at the