"What's this," said the Bull Buffalo, "Pale Faces?"
"They are very young," said the young cow, the one with thegoing look. She had just been taken into the herd that season and had the place of the favorite next to the leader.
"If you please, sir," said Oliver, "we only wished to know where the trail went."
"Why," said the Buffalo Chief, surprised, "to the Buffalo roads, of course. We must be changing pasture." As he pawed contempt upon the short, dry grass, the rattlesnake, that had been sunning himself at the foot of the hummock, slid away under the bleached buffalo skull, and the small, furry things dived everywhere into their burrows.
"That is the way always," said the young cow, "when the Buffalo People begin their travels. Not even a wolf will stay in the midst of the herds; there would be nothing left of him by the time the hooves had passed over."
The children could see how that might be, for as the thin lines began to converge toward the high places, it was as if the whole prairie had turned black and moving. Where the trails drew out of the flat lands to the watersheds, they were wide enough for eight or ten to walk abreast, trodden hard and white as country roads. There was a deep, continuous murmur from the cows like the voice of the earth talking to itself at twilight.
"Come," said the old bull, "we must be moving."
"But what is that?" said Dorcas Jane, as a new sound came from the direction of the river, a long chant stretching itself like a snake across the prairie, and as they listened there were words that lifted and fell with an odd little pony joggle.
"That is the Pawnees, singing their travel song," said the Buffalo Chief.
And as he spoke they could see the eagle bonnets of the tribesmen coming up the hollow, every man mounted, with his round shield and the point of his lance tilted forward. After them came the women on the pack-ponies with the goods, and the children stowed on the travoises of lodge-poles that trailed from the ponies' withers.