"No, wait you here," commanded A'tim; "there will surely be food in the teepee, and I mean to have it."
"Be careful," warned Shag; "this is a land of scarcity, and the hunters may bring us evil."
But already A'tim was skulking toward a small canvas tent, gleaming white beside the blue waters of Battle River. The Bull lay down to conceal his great bulk, and watched apprehensively the foray of his pillaging comrade. A'tim circled until he was down wind from the teepee.
"The Man is not in his burrow," he muttered, sniffing the air that floated from the tent to his sensitive nostrils; "but I smell the brown Pork Meat they eat."
Cautiously, stealthily, burying his brown-gray body in the river grass, he stole to the very tent pegs of the canvas shelter; there he listened, as still and silent as the river stones. There was no sound within; no living thing even drew breath beyond the cotton wall—he could have heard that.
In through the flap he slipped. Yes, his scouting had been perfect. A pair of blankets, an iron fry-pan, and—ah! there was the rich brown meat, its white edge gleaming a welcome. With a famished snarl A'tim fastened his lean jaws upon it, and sprang for the door. He was none too quick. "Thud, thudety-thud, thudety-thudety-thud!" a horseman was hammering down the sloping bank across the ford.
As A'tim leaped from the tent the horseman shouted and drove big rowel spurs hard up the flank of his galloping Cayuse.
"Just my evil chance!" snarled A'tim as he headed for Shag; "but what is a small piece of Bacon compared with a big Buffalo?" For into his quick Wolf brain came the safety thought that should the pursuing hunter sight Shag he would follow, and let the bacon go.