horned toad inside his waist, and started for camp.

After a while he heard someone shouting, but beyond faint
relief that he was after all near his "Outfit", Buddy paid no
attention. The boys were always shouting to one another, or
yelling at their horses or at the herd or at the niggers. It
did not occur to him that they might be shouting for him,
until from another direction he heard Ezra's unmistakable,
booming voice. Ezra sang a thunderous baritone when the
niggers lifted up their voices in song around their camp-
fire, and he could be heard for half a mile when he called in
real earnest. He was calling now, and Buddy, stopping to
listen, fancied that he heard his name. A little farther on,
he was sure of it.

"OOO-EE! Whah y'all, Buddy? OOO-EEE!"

"I'm a-comin'," Buddy shrilled impatiently. "What y' all
want?"

His piping voice did not carry to Ezra, who kept on shouting.
The radiant purple and red and gold above him deepened,
darkened. The whole wild expanse of half-barren land became
suddenly a place of unearthly beauty that dulled to the
shadows of dusk. Buddy trudged on, keeping to the deep-worn
buffalo trails which the herd had followed and scored afresh
with their hoofs. He could not miss his way-not Buddy, son of
Bob Birnie, owner of the Tomahawk outfit-but his legs were
growing pretty tired, and he was so hungry that he could have
sat down on the ground and cried with the gnawing food-call