One night a war party breaks in upon a village of the grain-growers, rushing over the dykes and killing the owners of the fields. A few escape, and scatter in all directions. See! There is one whole family, stealing away through the woods to the west—a man and woman, with deerskins thrown over their shoulders and tied with rawhide thongs around the waist; two naked children trotting behind, and a dog at their heels. They stop when tired out, snatch a few hours’ sleep, and flee on again. Day after day they hurry on. Their old hunting ground is left behind, and they slacken the pace, but still they press on to the west. The woods get thinner and thinner, till there is only a fringe of trees in a valley, sheltered from the wind of the plain above. The fugitives keep close to the rivers, where they can be sure of fish and birds and berries to eat. At last they come to a place where two rivers meet. The narrow valley here spreads out wide; its banks slope more gently, and are covered with brush; but a mile farther on both valleys are narrow again, and almost bare. “This place looks good to me,” says the man; “stay here by the river while I go exploring.” Climbing through the brush and out of the valley, he stands on the edge of a bare and boundless plain. He shades his keen eyes to see the end of it,—in vain. The gentle waves of turf stretch away—surely to the edge of the world! “If we go farther,” the man says, coming back to his wife, “we shall find nothing to catch; if we go back, we may be caught ourselves. We shall camp here.” He takes his bow and arrows to shoot a few rabbits for supper; his wife with a sharp stone axe cuts down branches for a shelter,—and that is the first prairie home. Time passes. More families come straggling up and join them. There is not enough food for all, and they often go hungry. There are coyotes on the plain, but they run like the wind; and antelopes, but they run like the cyclone. One day, the children climb up to the plain with their little bows and arrows to shoot gophers, but come running down again. They have seen monstrous animals up there, they say. Their father goes up with a spear. Sure enough, there is a herd of shaggy brown beasts grazing on the turf, with huge heads, fierce eyes, short horns and woolly manes. He has been used to hunting deer and moose in the woods, where he could creep silently from tree to tree until he got within easy range. It is quite another matter to attack a herd of fierce-looking buffalo, out on the bare plain where no shelter is. But the temptation is greater than the risk, when other game is scarce or small or hard to catch.