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They ran down a steep hillside dotted with many knolls and stones and came into an elongated, bowl-like valley toward one end of which there was a small spring lake. There they stopped to drink, to graze and to rest.

Just as the air in that valley bore no trace of smoke, the plains that stretched away from that valley bore no trace of man. A few grass-overgrown buffalo trails led from the lands above to the deepest part of the ancient lake and a bleached buffalo skull beside the main trail told the story of a day and its life that had passed.

A coyote den at the opposite end of the bowl and half way up the slope gave the only evidence of life about the lake. The rim of the bowl shut away the barrenness of the prairies above. The very dome of heaven rested upon the rim of that bowl and vast primordial spaces interposed protection against man’s greedy intrusions.

Little Queen drank some water at the ice hole, drank the milk that nature had prepared for her with all the care and concern of her mother’s love, then slept away another night at her beloved mother’s side, never even dreaming that this night was shutting fast forever the doors behind which lay the closed first period of her life.