The air had grown cold, making the warmth most agreeable.

“That ‘tarnal smoke follows me everywhere I turn,” said Sally Hudnall, as she moved to a seat beside Stronghurl.

“Elm wood ain’t so good to burn,” observed Pilchuck. “Neither is cottonwood. Smoke smells an’ makes your eyes smart.”

“Mary has a likin’ for hickory,” said Hudnall. “Golly! I’ll bet I’ll never again have apple pie baked over a hickory fire.”

“Unless you go back to Illinois,” added his wife, dryly.

“Which’ll never be, Mary,” he replied, with finality.

His words, tinged with a suggestion of failure back there in Illinois, checked conversation for a moment. They all had places dear to look back upon. Pioneers had to sacrifice much. Tom gazed at the circle of quiet faces with more realization and kindness. Buffalo-hunting was but to be an incident. It had dominated his thought. In the background of his mind, in the future, had been the idea of a ranch. With these people home and farm were paramount. Tom wondered if they were not starting out upon an ill-advised enterprise. Not to think of its peril!

Day by day the Hudnall outfit traveled over the prairie, sometimes west, and then south, yet in the main always southwest. They made from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, according to condition of the road and favorable places to camp. Now and then they passed a freighting outfit of several wagons, heavily loaded with buffalo hides. The days passed into weeks, until Tom lost track of them.

Down here on the great plains spring had surely come. All was green and beautiful. The monotony of the country had been broken up by streams winding away between wooded banks, yet the rolling level seemed to hold generally, viewed from afar. On clear mornings a gray heave of higher ground appeared to the south. What farther north had been an openness and sameness of country now assumed proportions vast and striking.

One sunset, when halt was made for camp in an arroyo, Pilchuck waived his usual work and rode off up a slope. Reaching the summit, he dismounted and, elevating a short telescope, he looked long to the southward. Later, when he returned to the camp, all eyes fixed upon him.

“See anythin’?” queried Hudnall, impatiently.

Tom felt a thrill merely from the look of the scout.

“Buffalo!” announced Pilchuck.

There was a moment’s silence. The women responded more quickly to this good news. Hudnall seemed slow and thick. Burn Hudnall threw down a billet of wood he had held in his hand.

“Buffalo!” he echoed, and the quick look of gladness he flashed upon his father proved how much he had been responsible for this trip.

“How many?” demanded Hudnall, with a long stride toward the scout.

“Reckon I couldn’t say, offhand,” replied Pilchuck. “Herd is another day’s ride south.”

Sally Hudnall interrupted her father as he was about to speak again: “Oh, I’m crazy to see a herd of buffalo. Are there lots of them?”

“Tolerable many,” replied Pilchuck, with a look of professional pride. “Reckon this herd is about fifteen miles long an’ three or four deep!”

Then Hudnall let out a stentorian roar, and that was a signal for equally sincere if not so exuberant a rejoicing from the others.

Next day’s travel was the longest Tom had ever endured. The ground was dusty, the sun hot, the miles interminable, and there appeared ahead only the gray-green stretch of plain, leading the eyes with false hopes. But at last, toward sunset, a fringe of winding foliage marked the course of a stream.