The spot chosen for it, in a curve of the stream, was one of rare beauty, and the loop formed by the long sweep of the rippling water would have been just the place for a secure corral, if that band of Nez Perces had had any four-footed property to be anxious about. It was not needful to keep a guard over their hope of stealing some thereafter. CHAPTER XV A GREAT CAPTAIN The band of Nez Perces had done very well thus far, and so had the band of white miners, but there had been one other band of travellers which had accomplished a good deal by reason of having an uncommonly good commander. The wicked old mule that had engineered the stampede of the Nez Perce ponies had continued to hold his position as captain. He could out-kick and out-bray any other mule there, and no mere pony would have dreamed of disputing him. There was some grass to be had, next day after the escape, and there was yet a little water in the pools rapidly drying away, but there was nothing anywhere to tempt to a stoppage. On he went, and on went the rest after him, and the reason why the warriors could not find his trail was because he did not leave any. He obeyed the strong instinct of all large animals, and some smaller ones, to "follow a beaten path and keep in a travelled road." He struck the well-made buffalo trail and did not find any reason for wandering from it. Multitudes of men have a precisely similar instinct, and keep in any particular path in life mainly because they are in it; they stick all the closer if they can see anybody else doing the same thing. That was what the wicked old mule saw, and he may have imagined that the squad or rather string of bisons ahead of him knew where they were going and what for. At all events he led his band closely behind them, and they plodded on in a way that carried them ahead quite rapidly. It carried them into the pass and through it, mule, ponies and all, and there was no one to tell them of what had happened there before or what was about to occur. Something had happened--something that is pretty sure to come to all bisons, sooner or later. In due season their great bodies reel and fall, and the wolves and buzzards are fed. But for such things the wolves would all die, and they have an unerring judgment as to the condition of an ailing bison. They never attack a healthy bull or cow unless they are in great force and the animal is alone. The migration of bisons from the parching plain to better pasture had been going on for some time, and the coyotes had followed it as a matter of course. The very day that the old mule halted his runaways at the spring for all the water they could hold, there should have been a painter on the great ledge which was followed by the trail in the middle of the pass. There was a tragedy there worth sketching.