Henry slid forward, recovered a long dead stick, and rapidly whittled from it a lot of shavings. He never knew why the buffaloes did not take alarm at his presence and actions, but he always supposed that the mystic tie of kinship still endured. Then using his flint and steel with all the energy and power that imminent danger could inspire, he lighted first the shavings and then the end of the long stick. The buffaloes at last began to puff and snort and show alarm, and Henry, springing to his feet, whirled the torch in a circle of living fire around his head. The whole herd broke in an instant into a frightful panic, and with much snorting and bellowing rushed away in a black mass toward the east. He threw down his torch, and grasping his rifle and throwing his pack over his shoulder, followed close upon them, so close that not even the keenest eye in the forest could have distinguished him from the herd in the great cloud of dust that quickly rose. It was for this cloud of dust that he had bargained. The soil of the prairie became dry in the autumn, and the tramplings of four or five hundred huge beasts churned it into a powder which the wind picked up and blew into a blinding stream. Henry felt it in his eyes, his nose, his ears and his mouth, but he was glad and he laughed aloud in his joy. The rush and bellowings of the buffaloes made it a mighty roar, and the soul within him was wild and triumphant, as became one who was the very spirit and essence of the wilderness. He shouted aloud like Long Jim Hart, knowing that his voice would be lost in the thunder of the herd and could not reach the Indians. "On, my gallant beasts!" he cried. "Charge 'em! Break their line! They can't stand before you! Faster! Faster!" He struck one of them across the body with the butt of his rifle, but the herd was already running as fast as it could, while the cloud of dust was continually rising in greater and thicker volume. In the midst of this cloud, and hanging almost bodily to the herd itself, Henry was invisible as he rushed on, shouting his battle song of triumph and defiance, although no word of it reached the warriors who had lain in the brushwood and who were now fleeing in fright before the rush of the mad herd. Mad it certainly was, said Red Eagle, for the chief himself, with Wyatt and Blackstaffe, had been directly in its path, and they had been compelled to run in undignified haste, while the great pillar of dust, filled with the dim figures of buffaloes, crashed and thundered past, trampling down bushes, crushing saplings, and driving off to the east, the pillar of dust still visible long after the buffaloes were deep in the forest. Red Eagle stared after it. He was a wise old chief, and he had seen buffaloes before in a panic, but he did not understand the cause of this sudden and terrific flight. "It is strange," he said, "but we must let them run. We will go back now and look for Ware." CHAPTER IX THE COVERT