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 feet square with a gorgeous carpet of rich green and vivid gold. Alarmed at his approach, they took wing again and flew with shrill screechings out of the woods and across the prairie.

Burliegh paid no attention to them, but marveled a little at the wild turkeys. The place was evidently a courting ground for the big flocks which roosted in the cypress swamp beyond the belt of canes; and on every side, as he rode amid the far-spaced trees, he saw great bronze gobblers strutting and pacing before coquettish hens. Once or twice he fingered his weapon nervously as some exceptionally magnificent gobbler tempted him; but remembering the object of his quest, he rode on.

Black Bull, lazily cropping the succulent prairie grasses a bow shot from the forest's edge, raised his head often to look and listen. Six springs had passed since, as a newly born calf, he had been borne out of the canebrake, ten miles farther down, on the strong young shoulders of Keenta the Beaver, who had carried him to Ahowhe the Long-Haired and laid him at the girl's feet. Thus he had become Ahowhe's pet and had so continued through his babyhood. Later he was known as Black Bull of Ahowhe; and later still, when he had attained his full astonishing bulk, there were some—Keenta among them—who called him Yanasa, the Very Great Bull, though in truth that name belonged