He gave no reason for the resentful feeling he had shown against Great Bear, but loud chuckles among the men expressed their approval of his idea that if the Comanches should meet the lancers the story of the Kilkenny cats would be repeated. A general hunt was forbidden on account of the horses, and only two men went out as buffalo butchers. On leaving his party, Red Wolf rode in a kind of long circuit instead of aiming at the nearest grove. He galloped a full mile before he gave any reason why he had not gone in a straight line. He may have been a little uncertain about his landmarks, but he made no considerable error in his calculations. "Ugh!" he exclaimed, as he pulled in upon the crest of a prairie roll and looked forward earnestly. "Heap hole. Big stone. Big Knife get water." He was near the brink of a deep and remarkable hollow. It was almost regularly funnel-shaped, and on the opposite side of it sat a large boulder of granite. Such "sink-holes" can be found only in limestone formations. They are supposed to lead to caverns and subterranean watercourses. The presence of a mass of granite was, therefore, one of the many puzzles for geologists. Perhaps it had floated there upon a cake of ice. Then the ice had melted; the water had run off down the sink-hole; and the boulder was left to supply the red hunters of the plains with a perpetual guide-board. "Big stone here," he said. "Water there." The direction in which he rode away gave his words an explanation. He went as straight as an arrow for more than another mile, hardly glancing aside, either at groves of trees or herds of fat bisons. Meantime, the white men he was providing refreshment for rode slowly onward. They heard a brace of rifle reports, and took the success of their hunters for granted. They remarked to each other, however, that good luck was with them, for "bufler" were getting scarcer year after year so far as that to the eastward. "One of these days," said Bowie, "they'll all be gone. This 'll be corn land then, and every farmer 'll raise his own beef." "He'll kill it for himself, too," laughed Cheyne. "I don't want to be here then. I'd ruther have my beef runnin' round the prairie for free shootin'." Bowie's eyes were all the while busy in a search for "sign." He had found none near his present line of march, but if he could have looked back upon his entire trail he would have seen several things to interest him. The first point was in the timber at the upper end of the long ravine. A dozen braves of the Comanches were grouped, on foot, around the opening through which Tetzcatl had so suddenly disappeared. They were watching, bow in hand, as if it had been the den of some wild animal, or rather as if, possibly, some returning Texan might at any moment show himself as a target.