. Then, while Will
fed the fires, Roka and Pehansan carefully cut the arrows out of the
body.

"We may need them all before morning," said Roka.

"It is so, if the growling be a true sign," said Pehansan.

The two warriors partly skinned the body and cut off great chunks of
meat, which they broiled over the fires, and all three ate. Meanwhile,
Will, bow and arrows ready, watched the bushes beyond the circle of
flame. If his situation had been nearly primitive in the day it was
wholly primitive at night. The mighty bull buffalo was to him truly a
mammoth, and beyond the circle of fire, which they dreaded most of all
things, the fierce carnivora were waiting to devour the hunters and
their giant prize alike. When a pair of green eyes came unusually near
Will fired an arrow at a point midway between them, and a terrific
howling and shrieking followed.

"It was one of the great wolves, I think," said Roka, "and your arrow
sped true. The others are devouring him now. Listen, you can hear his
big bones cracking!"

Will shuddered and threw more wood on the fires. What a blessed thing
fire was! It saved them from the freezing night and it saved them from
the teeth of the wild beasts, which he knew were gathering in a great
circle, mad with hunger. The flames leaped higher, and he caught
glimpses of dusky figures hovering among the bushes, wolves, bears and
he knew not what, because imagination was very lively within him then
and he had traveled back to a primordial time.

The night became very dark and the snow hardened again under the cold
that came with it. Will, crouched by one of the fires with his bow and
arrows ever ready in his hands, heard the sounds of heavy bodies, either
sinking into the snow or crushing their way through it. The wind rose
and cut like a knife. Despite his heavy buffalo robe overcoat he moved a
little closer to the fire, and Pehansan and Roka almost unconsciously
did the same. They were all sitting, and the great body of the slain
bull towered above them. The sound of the wind, as it swept through the
gorges, was ferocious like the growling of the beasts with which it
mingled.

"The spirits of evil are abroad to-night," said Roka. "The air is full
of them and they rush to destroy us, but Manitou has given us the fire
with which to defend us."

A long yell like that of a cat, but many times louder, came from a point
beyond and above them, where a tree of good size grew about fifty yards
awa