"I know of a land where it is not this way," asserted A'tim, after a pause; "a beautiful land, with pea-vine knee-deep, and grass the Men call blue-joint, that fair tops my back when I walk through it. As for drink! why, one day in a single tramp I crossed sixteen streams of beautiful running water."
"Are you dreaming, A'tim?" asked Shag, touching the Dog-Wolf's back with the battered point of his stub-horn.
"No, Bull; and there are few hunters in that land, and few of your kind; and shelter of forest against the White Storm; and buttes and coulees everywhere."
"An ideal Range," muttered the Bull; "is it far?"
"Perhaps half a moon—perhaps a whole moon from here to there, just as one's feet stand the trail."
"You make me long for that great feeding," sighed Shag enviously.
"Yes, you'd be better in the Northland, Shag," said the Dog-Wolf, sleepily —"better there. Here you are an Outcast, even as I am."
"Yes, after the big Kill to-morrow," sighed the Bull mournfully, "I shall want to trail somewhere. Across Kootenay River is good feeding-ground, but there the accursed Long Knives are filled with the very devil of destruction, and kill even such as I am, though my hide is not worth the lifting. I, who am an Outcast, and have lost all pride, know this—I am worthless."
The bubbling monotone of the old Bull had put A'tim to sleep. He was giving vent to gasping snores and plaintive whimpers, and his legs were twitching spasmodically; he was dreaming of the chase. Shag turned his massive head and watched the nervous Dog-Wolf with heavy, tired eyes. "He is chasing the reed-legged Antelope now; or, perhaps, even in his sleep, Camous pursues him with the many-breathed Fire-stick. Well, well, by my hump, but we all have our troubles; even this Dog-Wolf, who is not half my age, has lived into the hard winter of life."
Then Shag rested his black-whiskered chin on the soft turf, his tired eyelids, mange-shaved, drooped over the age-blurred eyes, and these two Outcasts, so strangely mated, driven together by adversity, slept in the coulee of Belly Buttes.