Next morning the Irishman and I saddled up and started out to secure the hides. We could have killed what we needed out of the first band we struck, but, as I wished to use the carcasses for wolf baits, we decided to distribute the baits at different points about the camp and not less than a mile from it. We killed and skinned six bulls, making a complete circuit of our camp, and by noon had returned with the hides. After dinner we spread enough of them over the roof timbers to completely cover them and then set to work shovelling on the dirt, making quite a mound of it. This finished our stable, except for the mangers and feed-boxes inside and making a door of some kind to close up the opening we had cut through the bank. This last Tom made next day by a frame of poles on which was tacked a buffalo-hide. This door was hung on rawhide hinges. "Now, men," said the old man as we topped out the dirt roof and smoothed it up, "we've a snug shelter here for our stock in case of need, but, of course, we won't put 'em into it till we have to. As long as it's fair they'll do better out on the buffalo-grass, as they've been doing. Our stable, hay, an' grain will be our reserve for stormy weather or when the grass is covered with snow. We must still work hard till we get our own winter quarters finished up, an' then let the weather turn loose--we'll be ready for it." Toward evening I made the round of the buffalo carcasses and poisoned them for the night's catch of wolves. As we gathered around the supper table in the evening I suggested: "As I expect a big job of wolf skinning in the morning, I guess I'll need help, and maybe I had as well take Jack along with me and be breaking him in." "All right," replied the Irishman, "if Tom says so, I'm your huckleberry. How many skins are you going to get this haul?" "Well, I don't know, but, putting it low, I ought to find at least five or six around each bait, and maybe twice that many, so you see, skinning, bringing in, and pegging down thirty-five or forty wolf pelts is no small job." "Well, it'll take the two of you the whole forenoon," said Tom ruefully, "but the wolfskins must be taken care of--that's what we're here for. Still, I'm mighty anxious to get the other dugout done, so I guess you'd better not kill any more buffalo for bait unless we need some more of their skins to cover our dugout. These six will keep you a-poisoning and a-skinning for at least three or four days to come, and all of that time there'll not be much done on the dugout, for part of my time'll be taken up doing the cooking an' camp work. But go ahead with your wolf killing, for every pelt cured is as good as six bits or a dollar in pocket at the least calculation."