the dusk, he slipped from under his thin blanket in the skin lodge, where slumbered; old Antoine and family, and scuttled, bending low, out into the prairie.
He would have sought the four white men who had come from the United States chiefs' camp, but they had left, looking for two other men who had strayed. And besides, he didn't feel certain that they would help him.
The prairie was thick with high grasses, and with bushes whereon berries were ripening; he wore only a cloth about his waist, on his feet moccasins, but he did not mind, for his skin was tough. He carried his bow, of the yellow osage wood, and slung under his left arm his badger-hide quiver containing blunt reed arrows.
The damp night air was heavy with smoke, for the prairies had been fired in order to drive out the game. Now and then he startled some animal. Eyes glowed at him, and disappeared, and a shadowy form loped away. That was a wolf. He was not afraid of any cowardly wolf. Larger forms bolted, with snorts. They were antelope. To a tremendous snort a much larger form bounded from his path. That was an elk. But he hastened on at a trot and fast walk, alert and excited, his nostrils and eyes and ears wide, while he ever kept the North Star before him on his left.
It seemed long ere in the east, whither he was hurrying, the stars were paling. On his swift young legs he had covered many miles. None of the Oto or
