The sun was now low in the west; here was a good place for camping; a little brush would do for firing, and water was close at hand. So the tired hunters, after a brief rest, while they lay on the trampled grass and recounted the doings of the day, went to work at the game. The animal was dressed, and a few choice pieces were hung on the tree to cool for their supper. It was dark when they gathered around their cheerful fire, as the cool autumnal evening came on, and cooked and ate with infinite zest their first buffalo-meat. Boys who have never been hungry with the hunger of a long tramp over the prairies, hungry for their first taste of big game of their own shooting, cannot possibly understand how good to the Boy Settlers was their supper on the wind-swept slopes of the Kansas plains. Wrapping themselves as best they could in the blankets and buffalo-robes brought from home, the party lay down in the nooks and corners of the ravine, first securing the buffalo-meat on the tree that made their camp. "What, for goodness' sake, is that?" asked Charlie, querulously, as he was roused out of his sleep by a dismal cry not far away in the darkness. "Wolves," said Younkins, curtly, as he raised himself on one elbow to listen. "The pesky critters have smelt blood; they would smell it if they were twenty miles off, I do believe, and they are gathering round as they scent the carcass." By this, all of the party were awake except Sandy, who, worn out with excitement, perhaps, slept on through all the fearful din. The mean little prairie-wolves gathered, and barked, and snarled, in the distance. Nearer, the big wolves howled like great dogs, their long howl occasionally breaking into a bark; and farther and farther off, away in the extremest distance, they could hear other wolves, whose hollow-sounding cry seemed like an echo of their more fortunate brethren, nearer the game. A party of the creatures were busy at the offal from the slain buffalo, just without the range of the firelight, for the camp-fire had been kept alight. Into the struggling, snarling group Younkins discharged his rifle. There was a sharp yell of pain, a confused patter of hurrying feet, and in an instant all was still.