“Glory be!” Pizen Jane mumbled. Buffalo Bill saw now that she was trembling, as if her nerves were exhausted. “Shall we ride out now?” he asked. Before she could answer, the sharp report of a revolver, or rifle, sounded. It was some distance away; yet the stillness which had followed the cessation of the wolf attack made it possible for sounds to carry a long distance. Following the first shot, came others in quick succession. “Some other pore critter attacked by them varmints!” Pizen Jane interpreted. “Yes.” “I hope they don’t git him, if he’s honest and hon’rable; I hope he’s nigh to the water, and can git into it, as we did.” The scout was listening for a repetition of the shots. “I hope a painter will come ’long to his ’sistance, as it did to ours.” The shots did not sound again. “They’ve killed him, er he’s druv ’em away, er mebbe the painter skeered ’em. I’m swearin’ by painters, frum this time on!” Pizen Jane’s tongue would wag, no matter what happened. “If I thought we could aid him, and he needed aid now, I’d try to go to his help,” said the generous scout. “But we don’t know where he is!” “He’s out in that direction, somewhere.” “And he may be a road agent, or even an Injun. More likely to be, than an honest man.” “Very true; yet I shouldn’t want any human being to be torn alive by wolves.” “It’d serve some of ’em right,” avowed Pizen Jane, with a grimness that was not pleasant. “Some on ’em that I know of, and am lookin’ fer, ought to be chopped into giblets. If the wolves should kill ’em, it’d save me the crime of murder when I meet ’em.” When the shots did not come again, and nothing occurred to indicate who the man was, or what had happened to him, the scout abandoned his desire to go to his aid. He feared the return of the wolves; and so he kept his horse in the stream, though the beast was soon shaking from the chill of the cold water. “It’s a tarnal queer thing, Buffler, ther way that animiles do,” averred the woman, dropping into a mood of philosophy. “The wolves warn’t afeared of us, even when we laid ’em out on the shore like chopped corn, though they was skeered o’ that painter; and the painter that wasn’t afeared of the wolves, was afeared of us. Varmints aire that queer there’s no knowin’ what to expect of ’em.” For nearly an hour the scout kept his shivering horse in the stream; but when it was seen that the wolves were not likely to return soon he rode out of the water. On the shore he went into camp, and there he built a fire. The fire would help to keep the wolves at bay; and also it was needed to enable him and Pizen Jane to dry their wet clothing.