Buffalo!
"I should say!" gasped Terry.
"Must be ten thousand of them," called Harry.
"Look out for Jenny and Duke!"
Jenny was snorting, as the morning breeze bore the reek of the vast herd to her nostrils. No, mules did not like buffalo. Duke's head was high, as he stared. Harry had partially dressed; now he hurried to quiet the team. Terry drew on his trousers and boots and hastened after.
The buffalo were grazing, and seemed to be drifting slowly this way. The hither fringe was not a quarter of a mile from the camp. Bulls bellowed and pawed and rolled, calves gamboled and breakfasted, and around the mass prowled great gray buffalo wolves, waiting their chances. All was wondrously clear in the first rays of the rising sun.
Harry led the restive Jenny to the wagon and tied her short.
"I think we'd better get right out of here," he announced, as he helped Terry and Shep drive the equally restive Duke in. "The coast ahead is clear. But if we wait for breakfast or anything, that herd's liable to be on top of us."
"Let's hustle, then," agreed Terry. "They're coming this way, sure. I heard 'em, in the night, but I didn't know what it was."
"Same here," confessed Harry, as they hustled to put Duke and Jenny to the cart, and pitch the camp stuff inside. "Funny where such a mob rose from. Reckon something set 'em traveling."