Dick knew from the indications that he must have been far away in his sleep, and that the disappointment struck him cruelly. "So, it was all a dream after all, and mother was not calling me to get up or the griddle cakes would be cold?" Roger remarked, dolefully. "Oh, how fine they used to taste, with that wild honey smeared over them! Do you remember the time when we brought in four heaping buckets of honey from that bee-tree up on Juniper Creek, and how my left eye was closed by a sting? But never was there such sweet stuff. And to think that we have to go without a bite of breakfast this cold morning!" "Just as soon as it gets a little lighter," said Dick, "we will be on the move." "Searching for something to eat, you mean, don't you?" "Yes, whether it is that stray buffalo, or an elk, we will not be very particular which," the other declared. "Why, I think I could eat a--a wolf, almost, I'm that caved in," declared Roger, and no doubt he meant it, too. The dawn was at hand. Eagerly they watched the pink flush spreading across the eastern sky. With a change in the wind they could hear a distinct muttering sound, and it was easy to picture some gushing geyser in action, perhaps miles away. Just as soon as they could see without trouble they turned their backs on Camp Hope, and were soon following the trail of the buffalo. "If I thought we would have any trouble about getting a supply of wood, so as to start a fire in a hurry after we get our meat," Roger observed before they abandoned the camp, "I'd be tempted to tote some of this good fuel on my back." "No need of doing anything like that," Dick assured him. "If there is anything that is plentiful around here it is fuel for a fire. I already have some small bits of choice stuff laid away for a time of need." The wind had shifted the surface of the dry snow to some extent, so that in places they found the tracks of the buffalo almost covered. But Mayhew was a born trailer, and found no difficulty in following the animal. "You see," he told the boys at one time, "this may be a good thing for us, because we can tell where the beast started fresh this morning." It was not twenty minutes after he made this remark when the scout joyously showed them where the buffalo had spent the night. They could plainly see the imprint of his hairy coat in the snow where he had lain down. The cold had no particular terror for such a rugged beast and, as he went on in about the same general direction as his previous trail, they believed they were right in assuming that the buffalo, through instinct, knew where forage was to be found, and was heading thither. All possible haste was now made by the three pursuers. It meant much to them that they presently overtake the quarry, or else run upon some other game.