"Most assuredly," replied the Bull, "thou leavest nothing but the bones."
"Nothing but the bones," concurred A'tim. "And as I was saying, these Long Knives put the Flour of Death in the dead Buffalo, and my Wolf Brethren, when they eat, being forced to of their hunger, die like flies at Cold Time."
"And a good thing, too—I mean—" and Shag coughed apologetically; "I mean, as a Calf I received cause to remember your Wolf Brothers, A'tim; there's a hollow in my thigh you could bury your paw in, where one of your long-fanged Pack sought to hamstring me. You, A'tim, who are half Wolf, know how it comes that where one of your kind puts his teeth, the flesh, sooner or later, melts away, and leaves but a hole—how is it, A'tim?"
"Foul teeth," growled the Dog-Wolf. "They're a mean lot, are the Gray Runners; even I, who am half of their kind, bear them no love—have they not outcasted me because of my Dog blood? I am no Wolf, Shag; I am A'tim, which meaneth 'a Dog,' in the talk of the Crees."
"Even so, Brother," said Shag, "how comes it that thou art a half-breed Wolf at all?"
"That is also of Man's evil ways, Brother Bull—thinking to change everything that was as it should be before he came. This false mating is of his thought; to get the strength of the Wolf, and the long-fasting of the Wolf, and the toughness of the Wolf, into the kind of his Train-Dogs. And because of all this, I, who am a Dog, am outcasted."
"Well, we'll soon all be gone," sighed the Bull, plaintively; "when I was a Smooth Horn, and in the full glory of my strength—"
"Thou must have been of a great strength, Shag, for thou art the biggest Bull from Belly Buttes to Old Man River—Waugh! Waugh! that I can swear to."