“So long, Mackenzie,” said French, as they rode away.  “Hold down the ranch till we get back.  We’ll strike out north from here, then swing round across the Night Hawk toward the hills and back by the Eagle and Wakota, and come up the creek.”

To hunt up a stray beast on the wide open prairie seems to the uninitiated a hopeless business, but it is a simple matter, after all.  One has to know the favourite feeding-grounds, the trails that run to these grounds, and have an idea of the limits within which cattle and horses will range.  As a rule, each band has its own feeding-grounds and its own spots for taking shelter.  The difficulties of search are enormously increased by the broken character of a rolling bluffy prairie.  The bluffs intercept the view, and the rolls on the prairie can hide successfully a large bunch of cattle or horses, and it may take a week to beat up a country thickly strewn with bluffs, and diversified with coulees that might easily be searched in a single afternoon.

The close of the third day found the travellers on Wakota trail.

“We’ll camp right here, Kalman,” said French, as they reached a level tongue of open prairie, around three sides of which flowed the Eagle River.

Of all their camps during the three days’ search none was so beautiful, and none lived so long in Kalman’s memory, as the camp by the Eagle River near Wakota.  The firm green sward, cropped short by a succession of campers’ horses,—­for this was a choice spot for travellers,—­the flowing river with its soft gurgling undertone, the upstanding walls of the poplar bluffs in all the fresh and ample beauty of the early summer drapery, the over-arching sky, deep and blue, through which peeped the shy stars, and the air, so sweet and kindly, breathing about them.  It was all so clean, so fresh, so unspoiled to the boy that it seemed as if he had dropped into a new world, remote from and unrelated to any other world he had hitherto known.

They picketed their horses, and with supper over, they sat down before their fire, for the evening air was chill, in weary, dreamy delight.  They spoke few words.  Like all men who have lived close to Nature, whether in woods or in plains, French had developed a habit of silence, and this habit, as all others, Kalman was rapidly taking on.

As they reclined thus dreamily watching the leaping fire, a canoe came down the river, in the stern of which sat a man whose easy grace proclaimed long practice in the canoeman’s art.  As his eyes fell upon the fire, he paused in his paddling, and with two or three swift flips he turned his canoe toward the bank, and landing, pulled it up on the shore.

He was a young man of middle height, stoutly built, and with a strong, good-natured face.

“Good evening,” he said in a cheery voice, “camped for the night?”

“Yes, camped for the night,” replied French.

“I have a tent up stream a little way.  I should be glad to have you camp with me.  It is going to be a little chilly.”