This took another slice out of the day; and when Venning had washed in the river, and cooked and eaten his buffalo-steak, he resigned himself to the study of insects in place of the pursuit of game, while Muata, who had melted down the fat from the kidneys, sat and rubbed the oil into his limbs till his skin shone.
"Have you seen many buffalo ?" asked Venning, with a keen eye on a bit of crooked stick that had seemed to move.
"Many." "And you understand their ways ?" "I have watched as you watch the stick that is not a stick." Venning picked up an insect--a strange creature which had adapted itself to its surroundings by pretending to be a dried twig.
"Tell me what you saw." "I saw the twin bulls when they were calves, and I saw them when they led the herd, and when they lost the leadership.

I watched them.

Ow aye, I knew their ways.

Sometime, when I was yet a boy, I could understand what they said." "What they said, chief ?" "See, the creatures are like men in their ways, and men are like animals--each man like to one kind of animal.

Haw! So I judged what the buffalo would say if he could talk like men." "And what was the talk?
Tell it me; for I also have given speech to animals when I have watched alone." "I will tell you what I thought when I was young, and watched the things of the forest.