nd then grew lighter, shot with myriads of stars, which
gleamed as only prairie stars can; and among them, luminous and bright,
lay the Milky Way. The creek murmured in musical tones as it fretted at
some slight obstruction and all nature seemed to be at peace. Then
sounded the howl of a buffalo wolf, the gray killer of the plains, deep,
throaty, full, and followed by a quick slide up the scale with a ringing
note that the bluffs and mountains love to toss back and forth. Yet it
was somehow different. Woodson and his trapper aides, seated together
against a wagon, stirred and glanced sidewise at each other. Not one of
them had felt the reflex answer of his spine and hair; not one of them
had thrilled. A simple lack; but a most enlightening one.

Franklin bit into a plug of tobacco, pushed the mouthful into his cheek
with deft tongue, and crossed his legs the other way. "Hell!" he
growled. "Reckon we're in fer it."

"They jest can't git it _all_ in, kin they?" commented Zeb Houghton,
coming up.

"No," answered Tom Boyd. "They leave out th' best part o' it." He
glanced in the direction of the nearest fringe of trees, noisy
cottonwoods all, and shook his head. "We been havin' too fine a stretch
o' weather. Hear them trees? In two hours it'll be blowin' hard; an' I
kin feel th' rain already."

From the blackness of the creek there arose a series of short, sharp
barks, faster and faster, higher and higher, the lost-soul howl climbing
to a pitch that was sheer torture to some ears.

"Kiyote sassin' a gray," chuckled Zeb, ironically.

"'Upon what meat hath--'" began Tom, and checked the quotation. "He
oughter be tuckin' his tail atween his laigs an' streakin' fer th'
Platte; or mebby _he_ missed somethin', too," he said. "Everythin' else
shuts up when th' gray wolf howls."

"Doubled watches air not enough fer tonight," growled Woodson, as a
tremulous, high-pitched, chromatic, and descending run in a minor key
floated through the little valley. If it were an imitation of a
screech-owl it was so perfectly done that no man in the caravan could
detect the difference.

"Us boys will be scoutin' 'round all night," replied Tom. "Hank an' th'
others air gittin' some winks now. I don't look fer no fight afore
daylight; but they'll shore try ter stampede us afore then. Reckon I'll
take a good listen out yonder," he said, and arose. He went to Joe
Cooper's little wagon and was promptly challenged.

"It's Boyd," he answered. "S