Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/191

 before Black Bull was full grown and while he still grazed with tame cattle about the outskirts of the Indian village. Ahowhe, lover of all young things, had loved the little black calf which she had reared from infancy, providing it with a foster mother and caring for it herself; but when it had become a yearling bull her affection for it had cooled.

Not only was the bull of great stature for its age but it was also of a proud and dangerous temper. Ahowhe, comely as ever, but still childless, transferred her affections to other young things—fawns which Keenta brought her from the forest, a baby bear, two young ring-tailed raccoons; and Black Bull, grown more and more arrogant as his bulk increased, would have been dealt with as a menace to the village had not Keenta's influence protected him until the time came, as Keenta knew it would, when Black Bull bade the village farewell.

Even then, so far as was possible, Keenta continued to watch over him. All the tribesmen knew why. Kanakaw the conjurer had read in the writhing entrails of a slaughtered kid that Keenta's fate was bound up with the fate of the black bull calf which he had taken from under the eyes of the great Cat of God; that a day would come when Keenta, in peril of death, must perish unless Black Bull chose to save him; that not until then would Ahowhe bear him the son that he desired.