This story begins with a traditional Salish legend of how buffalo came to earth to feed the people.  Bill Farnsworth’s oil paintings provide excellent illustrations for this story of Walking Coyote and a near extinction of the buffalo in 1873.  Two Nez Perce, a boy and his father, discovered a calf they named Little Thunderfoot, who survived the slaughter of her herd.  They took her to the camp of Walking Coyote, a man who gathered endangered buffalo.  Little Thunderfoot becomes the leader of the herd and symbolizes the majesty of the powerful animals.  By mid-sumsmer, the small, orphaned herd was ready to travel over the mountains toward a mission’s pastureland.   When the mission did not accept the buffalo, Walking Coyote eventually found a kindred spirit in Michel Pablo, a wealthy rancher who shared his vision of bringing back the great herds.  An afterword adds details about the growth of the herd on the Flathead Indian Reservation.