272 The King of the Thundering Herd 



tent with slaughtering a few, but must sate 

 themselves with blood and kill the whole 

 herd. 



For two days they had been very busy, 

 working as these lazy men rarely work, and 

 everything was now in readiness. 



They had chosen a spot for their piskun 

 where a deep coulee ploughed a furrow 

 nearly thirty feet deep through the prairies. 

 At this spot the banks were almost perpen- 

 dicular. They had felled trees across the 

 chasm, using the white man's sharp axes, 

 until they had formed a pen-trap a hun- 

 dred feet long, fifty feet wide, and thirty 

 feet deep. Once inside this pen no horned 

 creature could escape, unless it was a big- 

 horn sheep. 



From this slaughter-pen they had builded 

 wings running out into the prairies. At 

 the immediate banks these wings were not 

 more than ten feet apart, and here they 

 were strong, builded like a stockade ; but 



