The breakfast was not hurried over. The fire was built up bigger than ever before they left, that its blackened remains might mark their camping place for days, if the farming men came after them.
Wilfred, who had buckled the saddle on Brownie, received a riding lesson, and then they started, Diomé driving the cart. Wilfred kept beside him at first, but growing bolder as his spirits rose, he trotted onward to exchange a word with Bowkett.
The sharp, frosty night seemed likely to be followed by a day of bright and mellow sunshine. The exhilarating morning breeze banished all thoughts of fear and care from the light-hearted trio; and when the tall white stems of the pines appeared to tremble in the mid-day mirage, Wilfred scampered hither and thither, as merry as the little gopher, or ground squirrel, that was gambolling across his path. But no large game had yet been sighted. Then all unexpectedly a solitary buffalo stalked majestically across what was now the entrance to a valley, but what would become the bed of a rushing river when the ice was melting in the early spring.
Bowkett paused, looked to his rifle and saddle-girths, waved his arm to Wilfred to fall back, and with a shout that made the boy's heart leap dashed after it. Wilfred urged his Brownie up the bank, where he thought he could safely watch the chase and enjoy a repetition of the exciting scenes of yesterday.
Finding itself pursued, the buffalo doubled. On it came, tearing up the ground in its course, and seeming to shake the quivering trees with its mighty bellow. Brownie plunged and reared, and Wilfred was flung backwards, a senseless heap at the foot of the steep bank.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST SNOWSTORM.
IN the midst of the danger and excitement of the chase, Bowkett had not a thought to spare for Wilfred. He and Diomé were far too busy to even wonder what had become of him. It was not until their work was done, and the proverbial hunger of the hunter urged them to prepare for dinner, that the question arose.
"Where on earth is that young scoundrel of a boy? Has he fallen back so far that it will take him all day to recover ground?" asked Bowkett.
"And if it is so," remarked Diomé, "he has only to give that cunning little brute its head. It is safe to follow the track of the cart-wheel, and bring him in for the glorious teasing that is waiting to sugar his tea."