Breakstone saw the buffalo and whistled with delight. The four set to work, skinned him, and then began to cut off the tenderest parts of the meat for drying. This was a task that took them a long time, but fortunately the night was clear, with a bright moon. Before they finished they heard the howling of wolves from distant points, and Phil occasionally caught slight glimpses of slender dark forms on the plain, but he knew they were prairie wolves that would not dare to attack, and he went on with his work. "They’ll have a great feast here when we leave with what we want," said Bill Breakstone. "They’re not inviting creatures, but I’m sorry for ’em sometimes, they seem so eternally hungry." After the task was finished, three went back for the horses to carry their food supply, and Phil was left to guard it. He was tired now, and he sat down on the ground with his rifle across his knee. The moon came out more brightly, and he saw well across the prairie. The slender, shadowy forms there increased in numbers, and they whined with eagerness, but the boy did not have the slightest fear. Nevertheless, he was glad they were not the great timber wolves of the North. That would have been another matter. At last he took a piece of the buffalo that his comrades and he would not use and flung it as far as he could upon the prairie. There was a rush of feet, a confused snarling and fighting, and then a long death howl. In the rush some wolf had been bitten, and, at the sight of the blood, the others had leaped upon him and devoured him. Phil, who understood the sounds, shuddered. He had not meant to cause cannibalism, and he was glad when his comrades returned with the horses. They spent two days jerking the buffalo meat, as best they could in the time and under the conditions, and they soon found the precaution one of great wisdom, as they did not see any more game, and, on the second day afterward, entered a region of sand. The buffalo grass disappeared entirely, and there was nothing to sustain life. This was genuine desert, and it rolled before them in swells like the grassy prairie. The four, after going a mile or so over the hot sand, stopped and regarded the gloomy waste with some apprehension. It seemed to stretch to infinity. They did not see a single stalk or blade of vegetation, and the sand looked so fine, or of such small grain, to Phil that he dismounted, picked up a handful of it, and threw it into the air. The sand seemingly did not fall back, but disappeared like white smoke. He tried it a second and a third time, with the same result in each case. "It’s not sand," he said, "it’s just dust." "Dust or sand," said Bill Breakstone, "we must rush our way through it, and I’m thinking that we’ve got to make every drop of water we have in the bags last as long as possible."