When we had cleared away the breakfast dishes Jack chose the pick-and-shovel work and was soon making the dirt fly out of the hole on the other side of the ravine, while I set to making a hay frame of crossed poles on top of the wagon-box, notched and lashed together and held in place by strips of rawhide cut from the skin on the yearling buffalo quarters. Now and then on the still morning air, although about a mile away, we could hear the "whick-whack" as Tom whetted his scythe. At nine o'clock Jack went to the hay-field to help Tom, while I put on the dinner, to which I called them by flag at noon. In the afternoon they returned to their haymaking, and by evening they had a nice lot of hay in cocks which would do to haul and stack next day. After finishing the hay frame I worked at digging in the dugout. Buffalo were to be seen on the prairie all about us, and now and then a few antelope made their appearance, but we were too busy to spare the time to go out and kill any. Flocks of water-fowl--wild geese, brants, ducks, and sand-hill cranes--were seen and heard flying over and sometimes alighted in the pond formed by the beaver dam, and also seemed to come down at a point several miles down the creek, which indicated that there was a body of water there. In the evening when the men had returned from the hay-field we all stood for a while looking down the valley and remarking on the appearance of civilization imparted to the scene by the distant flat dotted over with cocks of hay. But in the morning at daylight, on again looking in that direction, we were filled with indignation to see that during the night a herd of buffalo had preempted our hay-field and had trampled, horned, and scattered all the nice cocks in every direction, and were now bedded on the ground, probably chewing their cuds in total indifference to our rights after almost destroying the previous day's work of our haymakers. "I'll make wolf bait of one of 'em for spite, so I will," said Jack as he seized a rifle and started down the hollow to get a shot. "Don't kill more'n one, Jack, just enough to scare them off," suggested Tom as the irate Irishman sneaked off down the ravine, "for we don't want our hay ground littered up with dead buffalo and dead wolf carcasses."