It was on the third day that A'tim said to the Buffalo Bull: "I am thirsty, Shag; my throat is hot with the dust. Know you of sweet drinking near—even with your sense of the hidden drinking you can find it, Great Bull, can you not?"
"This hollow trail leads to water, most assuredly," answered Shag, stepping leisurely into a path that was like an old plow furrow in a hay meadow. "Even this shows how many were my people once." The Buffalo sighed. "Within sight are more trails like this than you have toes to your feet, Dog-Wolf—this whole mighty Range from here to the Uplands, which is the home of the White Storm, is so marked with the trails of my people; and now there are only these Water Runs to remind us of them."
Soon they came to a little lake blue with the mirrored sky, its mud banks white as though with driven snow. "The bitter water mark," said Shag, as his heavy hoof sank through the white crust on the dark mud.
"I know," answered A'tim—"alkali, that's what Man calls it."
"Let us rest here this night—close to the drinking," commanded Shag; "to-morrow we will go forward again."
That night A'tim ate the last of the Buffalo meat Shag had packed on his horns for him. The next day they trailed again toward the Northland.
When they came to a river that was to be forded Shag carried the Dog-Wolf on his back; when there was presence of danger, a suspicious horseman, Shag curled up like a boulder, or crouched in a coulee, and if the Man came too near A'tim led him away on a hopeless chase. Daily the Dog-Wolf grew into the heart of Shag, the Buffalo, who listened with eager delight to his tales of the Northland.
A'tim had fared well while the meat lasted; but they were now in a land of much hunger—a land almost devoid of life; and the Dog-Wolf was coming again into the chronic state of his existence—famine.