"No," replied Hugh, "I don't think there is. Of course, you never can
tell what you might run across when you are going through the timber or
up over the rocks on the mountains, but as a rule these animals will
see, or hear, or smell you before you know they are around, and they'll
just slip out of sight, and either get away as fast as they can, or
else watch you to see what you are going to do. I remember that the
only wolverine I have killed in a good many years was one that I saw
traveling along over the rocks when I was up above timber-line one time
waiting to try to kill a sheep. He just walked up within easy shot,
and, of course, I killed him. A mighty pretty looking animal he was,
too, with his smooth coat all shining in the sun and blowing in the
breeze.

"But, look here, son, if you and I are going to get off in any sort of
season to-morrow morning we'd better turn in now. Suppose you go down
to the creek and get a bucket of water, and I'll go out and look around
through the horses, and then we'll make down our beds."

"All right," said Jack, and he did as requested, and a little later the
camp was peacefully sleeping, as the fire died down.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WATER FOWLS' SUMMER HOME

It was still dark when Jack awoke next morning, but when he struck a
match and looked at his watch he saw that daylight was not far off, and
rising and putting on his clothes he started to light the fire.

Hugh, having heard him, arose, and before long breakfast was well under
way. Then Jack went out to where the horses were picketed and set free
all but one, and this one he changed to fresh grass, so that the horses
might start with full bellies. The sun had not yet risen when breakfast
was over, and Jack had brought in and saddled all the horses. They made
an early start, for the day's journey was to be a long one.

For the first hour or two of the march it was interesting to Jack to
watch the antelope that were seen on both sides of the trail, and to
see how differently those acted that had the sun on their backs from
those that had the sun shining in their faces. Sometimes there were
antelope on both sides of the trail, and when those that were looking
away from the sun started to run, then those that were looking toward
the sun started also. But if the little pack train approached antelope
with the sun on its back, so that the antelope were looking toward the
sun, the timid animals, unable to distinguish what these moving objects
were, would let them come up very close without showing any alarm. Jack
had often seen the same thing happen with other animals, so it was not
new to him, but, nevertheless, it was interesting, and he spoke of it
to Hugh.

"Yes," said Hugh, "that is interesting, and, of course, brings up the
old question of how useful their different senses are to wild animals.
Some people say that a deer has bad eyes; that he can't see well, and,
of course, we all of us know that all game depends on its powers of
scent for warning that its enemies are about. Most game can hear well
enough, and can distinguish between the ordinary sounds of the timber
or the mountains and those made by a man going through the timber
or rattling the rocks. The people that say that game can't see are
mistaken, I think. They don't go quite deep enough into the matter.
What I believe is, that many wild animals don't notice a man and so
don't take him for an enemy, if he keeps absolutely still. An animal's
eye is quick to catch any motion, but a man standing still may be taken
for a stump, or a rock, or a bump of earth. The deer's eye does not
stop to look carefully at stumps and rocks and bumps of earth, but if
one of these things moves, then the eye stops and studies it, and is
likely to find out what it is."

"Of course that is so, Hugh," said Jack, "but I never thought of it
before. I remember, though, that when I went duck shooting on Great
South Bay with my uncle, and was sitting in the blind, he always warned
me never to make a sudden motion, but that if I wanted to lower my head
to get it out of sight behind the blind, I should do so with a slow,
gradual motion."

"Of course," said Hugh, "but if you stop and think a minute you will
know that that is just exactly what you do now when you are hunting in
this country. If you raise your head up so that it shows over a ridge,
and see an antelope feeding there, you don't duck down to get out of
sight; you lower your head very slowly. If you made a quick motion the
antelope would see you out of the corner of his eye, and would run
away without waiting to ask any questions. If you lower your head
gradually, he does not see the slow motion, and you can have a chance
to crawl up to him."

"That's so," assented Jack; "I must be pretty stupid not to be able to
think of these things."

"Well," replied Hugh, "of course you have to think, and boys don't
always stop to do that. Men, after they have lived a good many years
find that they have to do it. But this is what I wanted to say about
the power of game to recognize danger from man; a deer knows that there
is danger only from living things, and he knows also that only living
things move, so that if he sees anything make a sudden motion he knows
that he must be on the lookout."

All day they traveled on through a broad valley, and toward night
camped at the foot of a high, bare hog-back running north and south,
one of the foothills or spurs of the main range to the north. There
was a good spring where they camped, and quite a wide stretch of level
prairie, in which were half a dozen large alkali lakes, and on these
lakes were great numbers of water fowl. Some of them were so large that
Jack thought they must be geese, and getting his field glasses out of
the packs he looked at them and found that they really were geese.

"How is it, Hugh," he said, "that geese are found here as late in the
season as this? Here it's nearly the first of June, and it seems to me
all geese ought to have passed north to their breeding grounds before
this."

"I'll allow," answered Hugh, "that the geese ought to be on their
breeding grounds by this time, but why do you say they ought to be up
north?"

"Why", said Jack, "I thought all geese went north into Canada to breed,
except a few that breed in northern Montana, right close to the Canada
line."

"Well," said Hugh, "there's where you are mistaken. The geese breed
right here in these mountains, and quite a way south of here, too.
Then you know yourself, you've seen them breeding on the Missouri
River, although that is pretty well north, of course."

"Yes," said Jack, "I've seen them up north, but I didn't suppose that
any of them stayed as far south as this."

"That's a mistake," said Hugh. "In old times they used to breed on the
prairies as far south as Kansas, and maybe still further south. Many a
time I have seen them breeding in Nebraska and in northern Kansas, and
from that away north as far as I've been. Swans, too, used to breed in
the same country. The reason they don't breed there any more is because
the white people have come in and killed them at all times of the year,
and so they go on to a country further away from where the white people
are."

"Well, live and learn," said Jack. "I got my knowledge about that from
the books, but I guess the books don't know everything?"

"Well," said Hugh, "I guess the books know just as much as the men knew
that wrote them, and I suppose there's a lot about this western country
that they don't all know yet."

"Say, Hugh," said Jack, "after we've had supper I'm going over to these
lakes to try to see what birds there are on them. Do you mind coming
along?"

"No," said Hugh, "I'll go with you, but first we've got to get supper
and got to get up wood enough for to-night and to-morrow morning. I'll
rustle the supper if you'll pack in the wood."

"Done," said Jack; and for the next fifteen or twenty minutes he was
busy dragging in aspen and cottonwood sticks of which, before very
long, he had a good pile.

After supper Hugh said to Jack, "Son, to-morrow we'll have to kill
something, for there's only enough meat left for a couple of meals. I
don't like to eat meat that is just fresh killed, but if to-morrow
you'll kill a deer or a good fat antelope, we will carry it a day and
then it will be just about right to eat."

They washed up the dishes before they started, and then walked over
to the lakes, the sun being only about an hour high. The lakes were
shallow, and their shores, sloping up very gradually from the water's
edge, were all of soft, yellow mud, so that it was not possible to get
close to the water without sinking deep in the mire.

The abundance and variety of birds seen was very striking. White gulls
flew slowly over the water, and beautiful avocets, striking objects
from the contrasting black and white of their plumage, waded along near
the shore. Flocks of tiny shore birds tripped lightly over the soft
mud of the banks, and brown and black long-billed curlews stalked over
the grassy prairie. Many of these birds were evidently breeding, and
displayed great anxiety when the visitors approached their nests. The
curlews especially were demonstrative, and flew about close above the
men's heads, uttering loud, shrill cries.

On a little knoll near one of the lakes, Hugh and Jack sat down and
adjusted the glasses to study the birds that were floating on the water.

Geese and ducks of several species were there, and Jack could detect
also grebes and coots, and the curious little shore birds known as
phalaropes, which swam about in the water with a curious nodding motion
of the head that reminded Jack of the rails.

Jack was very much excited at this display of bird life, for he
realized that at this season of the year all these birds had either
eggs or young, and there were a multitude of birds that he had never
seen before, and whose eggs he had never seen nor even heard about.

"Why, Hugh, it seems to me we ought to stop over here a day and see if
we can't collect a lot of the eggs of these birds. I think there are
some birds here whose eggs have never been described. Just think what a
great thing it would be if I could take them back and show them to the
ornithologists who have never seen them."

"Sure," said Hugh, "that would be great. How are you going to know when
you get an egg back East what bird it belongs to?"

"Why," said Jack, "I suppose I could remember. I guess my memory is
good enough for that."

"Maybe it is," said Hugh. "I know mine wouldn't be, especially if I
had to do with a lot of eggs of birds that I never had seen before. I
should have to tie the egg round the neck of each bird and take both
home."

"Well," said Jack, "of course, if you are going to collect the eggs I
suppose you ought to collect the parent birds at the same time."

"I suppose," said Hugh, "that you've got your tools for fixing up these
eggs to take away with you, cached somewhere in the packs, haven't you,
and some sort of a chest to carry these eggs in? I expect if we put
a lash rope over them and pull pretty hard it will smash some of the
eggs, won't it?"

Jack sat silent for a little while, and then looked at Hugh. "I never
saw anybody that could make a fellow feel like such a fool as you can."

"Why," said Hugh, "I don't want you to feel like a fool."

"No," said Jack, "I suppose maybe that is not what you want. I suppose
that you want to make me think before I speak."

"Yes," said Hugh, "that's something I would like to do. That would be
a bully lesson for you to learn, and I think you are learning it, only
maybe not very fast."

"Of course," said Jack, "you know just as well as I do that I haven't
any stuffing tools with me, or any tools for blowing eggs, or anything
to carry bird skins and eggs in if I had them. Of course, if we were to
put such things on the packs they'd get broken and smashed up in forty
ways and wouldn't be worth throwing away."

"No," said Hugh, "I don't reckon they would."

"Well," sighed Jack, "it's mighty aggravating to sit here and look at
all these birds and think that there must be lots of their eggs all
about and I can't get hold of them."

"I'll allow that must be pretty aggravating," said Hugh; "but if you
wanted to go off to collect bird skins and eggs why didn't you think of
it before you started out from the States, and bring along with you the
tools you wanted to use? Suppose I had started from the ranch to trap
beaver, and had come down here without any traps, what would you have
thought of me?"

"Well," said Jack, "I suppose I'd have thought you were a pretty queer
trapper."

"I reckon so," said Hugh, "and I think you're a pretty queer bird
collector, as yet. You may become a good one later, though."

It soon grew too dark to distinguish the birds, and the two returned to
camp, where they built up a big fire, for the night was chilly. Several
times after the fire began to blaze up, they saw an owl fly into the
circle of light and pass once or twice about the fire and then out into
the darkness again.

"What gets me, Hugh," said Jack, after they had settled themselves
comfortably by the fire, and Hugh's pipe was going well; "what gets me,
is what has become of all the animals and birds that used to inhabit
all this country? Of course, when I first came out here I saw antelope
and buffalo in wonderful numbers, and there are lots of them now,
but there must have been a time, say a hundred or two hundred years
ago, when perhaps there was just as many buffalo and elk and deer in
Illinois or Ohio as there were in Wyoming and Montana when I came West.
Now, of course, all those animals have disappeared from that country,
and in the same way birds have disappeared. There must be places still
all over the West here where birds come and breed, just as thickly as
they do on these little ponds that we've been looking at to-night.
And in old times they may have bred just as thickly in the swamps of
Illinois and Ohio as they do here in this valley. What's become of them
all?"

Hugh did not answer, but made with his hand the sign for "gone under,"
meaning dead.

"Yes," Jack went on, "I suppose they are, but is that what is going to
happen to all the wild animals and birds in this country? Is the whole
of North America going to be swept bare of all the birds and animals
that belong to it, and just have nothing in it except sheep and cattle
and dogs and things? That's the way it seems to me, but I hope that's
not the way it's going to be."

"Well, son, that's one of the things that we have often talked over,
but it's a pretty hard thing to prophesy about. There's one thing sure,
all big animals are going to be killed off, except those that are found
in parks like that Yellowstone Park we came through two years ago. I
expect that there, elk and deer and sheep and antelope may be found for
a long time. But people are going to come into this western country,
thicker and thicker, and, of course, they are not coming here for their
health, they're coming here to make money. One man will start a band of
cattle, another will have a bunch of sheep, another will farm along the
creek; ten to one, mines will be found all over these mountains, and
the first thing any of us know the country will be full of people and
towns and railroads and factories. Of course, you don't need me to tell
you that there can't be any game when the country gets full of people."

"I suppose that's just what will happen, Hugh. I suppose a time will
come when there won't be any more buffalo, and maybe when there won't
be any elk or even deer. I'm glad that I was born in time to see
something of these wild animals."

"Yes," said Hugh, "you are lucky to get to see them, because I believe
that they're not going to last many more years. I wouldn't be surprised
if twenty or twenty-five years saw them pretty much all wiped out. I
expect that I'll be dead before that times comes, but likely you'll be
alive all right."

Jack sat thoughtfully staring into the fire as though he were
contemplating the death of all game, and of Hugh as well.

Presently Hugh went on: "Now, about the birds, it's a little different.
They've got wings, and can fly, and do fly long distances. They don't
have to stop in one place, and, of course, away up north there is a
whole lot of country yet that the people haven't got into, and I expect
a good many of the birds that used to breed in Illinois and Ohio, as
you were saying just now, don't stop any longer in that country, but
keep on going to the north.

"I've seen Hudson Bay men that came down from that northern country who
say that in some of the lakes and big rivers up there the natives at
the right time of the year kill a powerful lot of fowl. There must be
dead loads of them there, and then when molting season comes and they
lose their wing feathers and can't fly, the natives take after them in
their canoes and kill them with sticks and spears, and then dry them. I
believe that's a regular part of their living up there."

"There must be an awful lot of ducks and geese that breed in that great
country up there, Hugh. It's almost the whole width of the continent,
is it not? and a thousand or fifteen hundred miles north and south?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's an awful big country, and mighty few people in
it. You know, don't you," he went on, "that the food of a number of
the Hudson Bay Posts, during certain seasons of the year, is dried or
frozen fish, and dried or smoked geese? They kill the geese spring and
fall, as they are passing back and forth, and so many of them that they
store them up for the winter and summer food."

"My," said Jack, "what a place that would be to go shooting in!"

"Don't fool yourself, son. When you kill game regularly for the food
it yields, it stops being fun to hunt and it becomes real work. I know
it's so because I've done it."

"To-morrow morning," added Hugh, "unless I miss my guess, you'll see
the biggest beaver meadow you ever saw, and we'll get to it toward
night. Then beyond, and not far off, is the main range, where we can
hunt if we want to, but I don't know as we'll be able to get there.
Haven't you noticed something like smoke off to the west? 'Pears to me
I have, and it may be that the range is on fire. If it is, that will
let us out as far as hunting goes."

"I hope there isn't any fire," said Jack; "I want very much to get up
into the mountains."

"Well," said Hugh, as he rose and began to take the straps off his
bed and to unroll it, "even if we should not be able to get into the
mountains here, we can do it further south. We'll see how the high
hills look to-morrow."

In a little while the two were fast asleep, and as the fire died down
no sound was heard except the calls of the water fowl from the nearby
lake.

CHAPTER IX

A TROUBLESOME GRIZZLY

They had sat up so late the night before that neither Hugh nor Jack was
astir very early next morning, and the sun was well above the horizon
before they started west toward the high ridge which lay between them
and the main snowy range.

The horses were now so accustomed to traveling together that they
needed no driving, and Jack and Hugh rode side by side ahead of the
packs, though every now and then Jack looked back to see that the
animals were coming on well. Occasionally an animal would stop and lag
a little, and graze alongside the trail, but usually a shout from Jack
would cause it to stop feeding, and it would trot along until it had
overtaken the others. Each morning about an hour after starting, when
the ropes had stretched a little, the train was halted and the lashings
tightened upon all the animals, and after that they needed no attention.

Of course, if a bad stream or a very steep ravine had to be crossed,
Jack dropped behind and followed the pack animals, but the packing was
so well done that it was very seldom they had to give any attention to
the loads.

As they rode along Hugh said to Jack: "If we had a big train or heavy
loads, I would go 'round the point of the hog-back, which would make us
travel five or six miles further but would be a good deal easier on the
horses, but our animals are fat and strong, and lightly loaded, and we
may as well make the cut-off and cross the ridge."

The ascent of the hog-back was steep at first, but then became more
gradual. Several times during the climb they stopped to let the horses
breathe. On the way up, several big buck antelope were seen, each one
feeding alone, but as they were all at some little distance from the
trail, Jack thought it better to let them alone, on the chance later of
getting a shot which would require less time.

They had nearly reached the crest of the ridge when Hugh, waving his
hand toward the west, remarked, "I thought so; the range is afire,"
and Jack could plainly see the smoke rising some ten or fifteen miles
distant. A little further on they could see the whole range, and found
that everywhere to the south it was on fire, and that the fire seemed
to be moving northward. Columns and masses of thick white smoke rose
from the mountains in many places, and were rolling steadily along from
south to north.

The fire seemed to be chiefly on the lower slopes of the mountains.
Above it could be seen the green timber, and above that again gray
rocks bare of vegetation, whitened a little further up by occasional
patches of snow, and still higher were great fields of snow, pure and
shining when touched by the rays of the sun, but seeming gray and
soiled where shadowed by clouds or by a column of ascending smoke.

"No use to think of hunting there, is there, Hugh?" asked Jack.

"Not any, son," replied Hugh. "We'll have to strike into the hills
somewhere else. But look at that beaver meadow this side of the
mountain."

Jack lowered his eyes to the valley, and was astonished at what he
saw. There, spreading over miles and miles, north and south, was a
great carpet of green, bordered on either side by the gray and yellow
prairie, and intersected by a thousand tiny streams that glistened in
the sunlight. It looked like a vast carpet of emerald velvet over which
had been spread an irregular net of silver cords.

Beautiful it was, but the most astonishing thing about it all was
its great size. It seemed to stretch north and south for ten or
fifteen miles, and east and west for half as many. The view presented
astonishing contrasts in the aspect of the mountains, snow-capped,
timber-clad, and fire-swept; and not less in the lower land, with its
opposites of arid sage brush prairie, and of watered, verdant meadow.

Jack turned to Hugh: "That's the most wonderful thing I've seen since
I've been out West, Hugh. Did you ever see anything like it?"

"Well," said Hugh, "it's sure a pretty sight, but I wouldn't want to
say that it was the prettiest thing that I'd ever seen. One sees a
whole lot of fine sights out in this country. 'Pears to me I've heard
you say a good many times that different things are the most wonderful
things you'd ever seen."

"Well," said Jack, "that's so. I never get through wondering at the
sights here in the mountains, and I don't suppose it's true that each
thing is more wonderful than anything else I've ever seen, but I do
keep being surprised at all these beautiful sights."

"Well," said Hugh, "what do you think of stopping off at the first
water we come to, and taking off the loads and letting the horses rest
while we cook a cup of coffee?"

"That will suit me, Hugh," said Jack, "but I'd like to stop somewhere
so I can look at this show that is spread out in front of us."

"We can do that all right," said Hugh, "and I think over in that little
ravine just below us we'll find some water. There are some willows down
there, and that must mean a spring somewhere near."

They started on, Jack following behind to keep the horses up and to
catch them when they got to the stopping place.

Hugh kept on down the slope, and then turning short to the right
descended into the ravine. He had got part way down the slope when
suddenly his horse threw forward his ears and stopped. Two of the pack
horses turned at right angles and began to climb the sides of the
ravine. At the same moment, from under a cedar just ahead of Hugh, a
bear sprang up and rushed down the ravine. Jack caught a glimpse of the
animal, and saw Hugh throw his rifle to his shoulder and fire, but as
the black horse was trying to run, Jack was not sure that the shot had
told. Jack spurred his own horse up the side of the ravine where the
pack horses had gone, and in a moment was high enough to see portions
of the ravine down which the bear had run. He wheeled Pawnee so that he
could shoot handily, and having loaded his rifle, sat there watching
for the bear.

Suddenly it appeared, and he could see it while it ran twenty-five or
thirty yards along the ravine. It was a hundred and fifty yards off,
but he threw his rifle to his shoulder, and aiming high and well ahead
of the bear, fired. The animal turned a somersault at the shot, and
then regained its footing and disappeared.

Hugh, meantime, had galloped on down the ravine, and a moment of two
later his rifle spoke again.

Jack was strongly tempted to ride down and see what had happened, but
feeling that it was now too late to do anything, and that the bear
had either been killed or had escaped, he rode round the pack horses
and drove them on down the ravine, following Hugh's course. Presently
he came to a place where some willows grew at the side of a patch of
green grass, and there out of the bottom of the bluff bubbled a spring
of clear water. Jack tasted it and found it sweet and good, and then
caught up the pack horses and tied them to the willows.

A few moments later Hugh galloped back, dismounted, and said: "Well,
let's take the packs off here," and in a few moments the horses were
relieved from their loads, and were turned loose on the green grass,
with their hackamores dragging.

Jack saw that Hugh had blood on his hands, but forebore to ask any
questions. He felt sure that presently Hugh would tell what had
happened.

"Now, son," said Hugh, "we've got quite a job on our hands skinning
that bear. It's a good-sized fellow, and you know that skinning a bear
is a good deal of a job."

"Where is he?" said Jack.

"About a half mile down that little valley, right in the open. He's
got a fine hide and we want to save it. It ought to mean eight or ten
dollars to us. Suppose we go right down there and take his jacket off,
and then come back and eat and pack up and go on. That's going to cut
off your looking at the scenery, but we can't afford to waste that
bear's hide."

"No," said Jack, "you're dead right, of course. Let's go and do it now.
We can look at scenery 'most any time, but we don't get bears every
day. How was he hit, Hugh?" Jack went on. "There were only three shots
fired."

"I guess they all hit him," said Hugh. "My horse was hopping round so
when I fired the first shot that I expected I'd miss him clean, but I
don't think I did. I shot him too far back and too high up. When the
ball hit him he fell and bit himself, and then got up and kept on. I
started after him, but just then he disappeared round a point, and when
I got up to it he was away ahead of me. Then you shot and you hit him,
because he fell again and then got up and went on again, but he was
hard hit then and going slowly, and before long I got up to him and
killed him. The hide is in good order, and we are pretty lucky to get
it."

The two mounted and rode down the valley, presently reaching the bear,
which, as Hugh said, was a big one with a beautiful long coat of
shining brown. The long claws of the fore-feet showed that he was a
grizzly and a very large and handsome specimen.

The next hour and a half was spent in skinning the bear, and long
before this operation was finished, Hugh and Jack were tired and more
or less covered with grease.

"This will be good practice, son, if we get any beaver," said Hugh.
"You see, in skinning a beaver you've got to work just as you do on
this bear. You can't do any stripping; every inch of hide you take off
has got to be cut free from the fat that lies under it, and as you see,
that's a mighty long, slow business."

"I should say it was," said Jack, "and a mighty greasy business, too.
It seems to me as if I was all covered with oil, and I am, up to my
elbows, and my face, too. Seems to me my face never itched before as it
does now, and when I rub it with my greasy hands of course my face gets
all grease, too."

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's a very different thing skinning a bear or
beaver, from skinning a deer or a buffalo, but this is just a part of
the game, son, and this hide will pay us good wages for the trouble
we've been to."

"There," Hugh went on, as he made a last cut, "that hide is free on
this side down to the middle of the back. How are you getting on on
your side?"

"I've got a lot more to do," said Jack.

"All right," said Hugh, and he came around to Jack's side and began to
help him, and presently it seemed as if the hide were free throughout.

"Now," said Hugh, "I tried to lift and drag that bear just after he was
dead, and I couldn't stir it, and I don't believe you and I can do any
better now; let's try."

They took hold of the bear's hind-legs and tried to lift and pull the
carcass off the hide, but it was too heavy for them to move.

"Well," said Hugh, "get your rope off Pawnee and we'll see what a horse
can do."

When Jack had brought his lariat, it was knotted about the hind-legs
of the bear, and then after tightening the cinches of his saddle, Jack
mounted, took a double turn of the rope around his saddle horn, and
then slowly started Pawnee up the valley while Hugh took hold of the
bear's hide to keep it in place. The carcass began to slide off the
hide, and Hugh with his knife made two or three last cuts, which freed
the hide from the carcass, and presently the hide lay there spread out
flesh side up. After the rope had been untied from the carcass, the two
went over the hide with their knives scraping away all the fat that
they could get off, and presently Hugh declared that it was in shape to
be spread and dried.

"We're likely to have some trouble getting this on a pack, because, of
course, no horse likes to pack a bear hide, but I guess we can do it
all right. Instead of taking it back to where we left the horses, let's
spread it out here and bring one of the animals down here and load it
on him."

"All right," said Jack, "and now let's get back to camp. I feel like
having a wash."

Returning to the horses it took some little time with water, mud, and
sand--for, of course, the soap was in the pack and they did not want to
open it--to cleanse themselves of the grease from the bear. The smell
of the beast they could not get rid of, and this gave them some trouble
when they were catching and loading their animals, for the horses
snorted and jumped and pulled back when they caught the scent of either
of the two. However, at last they had their lunch, and then loaded
their horses, and went down to the bear skin.

As Hugh had said, the matter of loading it was not easily performed. It
was first lashed up into a secure package, to be put on as a top pack,
and then the lightest loaded of the horses was brought up to it. The
horse did not like it a bit, but at length by blindfolding him with a
coat tied about his head, he stood quietly enough for Hugh to place the
load on his back, but Jack was obliged to hold the rope, for the horse,
notwithstanding his blindfolding, kept stepping about and was very
uneasy.

Hugh managed to tie the skin on so that it would stay, and then Jack,
going around to the off side, helped to put on the lash rope firmly.
When they took off the coat, however, and the horse saw what was on his
back, he bucked fiercely all over the meadow, and would have stampeded
the other horses when he passed near them if it had not been that Hugh
and Jack, both mounted, had a firm hold on their ropes.

At last the horse became tired of bucking, but its fears were not
quieted, for every little while it would look back at its pack and
snort and rush here and there, much afraid of the load it was carrying.

"That bear skin is going to make us a lot of trouble, son," said Hugh,
"and the sooner we get it dried so that some of the smell will be gone
out of it, the better it will be for us. Let's go on now to the edge
of that beaver meadow and camp there. We'll have to spend a day or two
drying this hide and getting the horses used to it."

For the rest of the day they had much trouble with their horses, for
every time the trail crooked around so that the odor of the bear skin
was carried to the other horses of the train, there was a scattering,
and Jack had to round up the animals and bring them back again.

It was nearly dark when they finally camped at a little spring at the
border of the beaver meadow, where a little clump of cottonwood trees
gave shelter and wood for the campfire.

Not long before they reached the stopping place, dark clouds had begun
to rise over the mountains to the west, and gradually the whole
western sky became overcast.

"Looks like we were going to have a rain storm," said Hugh; "and I
wish we might, and a good hard one. It would put out the fire on the
mountains and cleanse the air of the smoke."

"Yes," replied Jack, "I wish it would rain. I hate to see all that
timber burning. It will take a long time for the mountains to become
green again."

"Yes," said Hugh, "many and many a year; and sometimes, of course,
after the fire has gone over the hills like that they never again are
covered with timber. I have seen mountains way down in the south-west
that at one time must have been covered with splendid great trees, and
then had been burned over and no trees ever grew there again. There are
big logs lying on the hillside now that are all that is left of those
old forests, but no sign of any new timber springing up anywhere."

"Well, how long ago were those mountains burned over?" asked Jack.

"You can't prove it by me," said Hugh. "I've asked that question a good
many times, and I have never found anybody that was old enough to know
anything about when the fires took place. It must have been long, long
ago."

"But why don't those old logs that you were speaking about, rot and
disappear?" asked Jack.

"I'll tell you why," said Hugh. "It's because that country is so dry. I
don't believe more than six inches of rain falls there in the year, and
nothing ever rots; things just dry up and lie there, getting drier and
drier all the time."

"And yet," said Jack, "when we came down through the mountains from
the north, we saw lots of country that had been burned, and almost
everywhere a lot of new green timber was springing up to take the
place of the old burnt tree trunks that were getting ready to fall."

"That's so," replied Hugh; "but I remember that we passed over some
places where the forests had been burned, where there was no sign at
all of anything growing, no sign of any soil; nothing except the bare
gravel or the rock."

"Yes," said Jack, "I remember that, too."

"I reckon it's like this," explained Hugh. "If the fire passes over the
country quickly and just burns or kills the standing trees and doesn't
heat the soil too much, then the seeds that have been dropped by the
trees and are lying hidden in the soil, sprout and new timber grows
up, but if the fire catches in the soil of the forest, which you know
is made up of the needles and branches and cones of the pine trees,
and if that soil is dry enough so that it will burn, then the fire
keeps creeping through it, burning it where it's dry enough to burn, or
heating it where it's too damp, and so all the seeds that are lying in
it are either burned or cooked, and there is nothing left to sprout.
Then after that, a few years of rain storms will wash away all the
soil, and as there's nothing left on the mountain to furnish seeds, no
timber ever grows. I take it, a great deal depends on the condition of
the soil at the time the fire goes through. If it's dry, the seeds of
the trees are likely to be killed. If it's damp, they're likely to live
after the fire has passed and to send up another crop of trees."

"It seems an awful shame, Hugh, that all this timber should be
destroyed and all game should be driven out. Of course, the timber has
no commercial value now. I suppose it's too far from any market, and
there's no way to get it out."

"No," said Hugh, "you couldn't sell it for anything, of course, but
the time will come, I expect, when there'll be some use for all this
timber. This country is going to fill up with people sometime, and
those people will need houselogs, corral poles, and fence-posts; and
then besides that, nobody knows what mines may not be found in these
mountains; and if mines ever are found and worked, there is going to be
a lot of lumber needed to timber them with."

When the camp was reached the western sky looked very threatening, and
Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, let us get these loads off as quick as we
can and picket the horses, and then we'll get the tent up. I reckon we
are going to be rained on to-night, and we may as well sleep as dry as
we can."

It took but a few minutes to throw the loads off the horses, and to
picket them, and immediately the little tent was raised and the beds
and packs got under cover. By this time it was dark, and over the
mountain-tops to the west could be seen lightning flashes, playing far
above the red glow of the forest fire.

"Yes," said Hugh, as he looked toward the mountains, "I believe that
rain will come pretty near putting that fire out to-night. At all
events it will check it."

The storm advanced toward them, and presently the light of the fire
grew dimmer as the rain passed over it and advanced toward the valley.
Supper had hardly been cooked when the first few drops reached them,
and after piling plenty of wood on the fire, they retreated to the
tent to eat. It was a hard thunder storm, and before long flashes of
lightning were thick all over the sky and the thunder was crashing and
rattling above their heads.

"I don't believe we'll get drowned out here to-night," said Hugh, "for
this place where we've camped is a few inches higher than anything
round about it, but we may find our things pretty damp in the morning,
for this hard rain sifts through even good canvas like this," and he
pointed to the tent above them.

"There's one thing you want to look out for when you are camping in a
dry country, son," he went on; "don't ever camp down in a ravine, no
matter how dry it may seem to be. I've known three or four cases where
a lot of fellows camped in a nice grassy spot in the middle of a ravine
and along during the night there came a cloud-burst somewhere up on the
high prairie, and the water came rolling down the ravine and floated
all the fellows off. I guided a party of scientific chaps one time that
did just that. The ravine was dry when they went to sleep, and they
were washed away during the night, and the next morning the ravine was
pretty nearly dry again, but they spent two or three days traveling
down that gulch, picking up their things that had been carried away by
the water and digging them out of the mud and sand. Some of the men
might easily enough have got drowned if the storm had lasted a little
longer."

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "why did you not tell them not to camp in such
a place."

"I did," said Hugh, "but they laughed at me, and thought that because
there wasn't any water there then, and hadn't been for a long time,
there never would be any. I took my blankets and slept on a little
point eight or ten feet above the bottom of the ravine and the water
never got to me, but I had to laugh at two or three of the young
fellows who waded out close to my bed. Of course, it was dark and
they didn't know where they were, nor what had happened. I heard them
calling and shouting to each other, and before that I had heard the
water coming, so that I knew what was taking place, but I could not do
anything to help any of them."

"Well, after that, Hugh, I expect those men had more respect for your
advice, didn't they?" said Jack.

"Well," said Hugh, "I don't know but they did."

CHAPTER X

A BIG BEAVER MEADOW

The next morning dawned bright and clear. Jack and Hugh were both up
before sunrise, and while Hugh was kindling the fire, trying to make
wet wood burn, Jack went down to the stream to get a bucket of water.
He was just about to stoop over to fill his bucket, when suddenly he
saw something swimming along under the water, and placing his bucket on
the ground, he fired at the object just as it passed in front of him.
The stream was narrow and deep, so that he shot almost directly down
into the water, and as soon as the splash made by the ball ceased, he
could see something struggling below him, and reaching down into the
water he caught the animal by a foot, and lifting it out threw it on
the bank. It was a little beaver.

Jack had seen plenty of beaver hides, but never before a living beaver,
and this seemed to him very small, and, judging by what Hugh had
previously told him, he concluded that it was a young one. It would not
weigh more than ten or twelve pounds.

Filling his bucket, he carried his water in one hand and the beaver in
the other, with the rifle under his arm, up to the tent, and surprised
Hugh by throwing the beaver on the ground.

"Well," said Hugh, "is that what you shot at? I wondered whether you
could have run on a deer down by the creek, or maybe an antelope.
This is a good piece of meat you've brought in. Beaver is first-class
eating, and this is a nice, fat, tender kitten. About three months old,
I should say, by the size, and it's mighty early for kittens as big as
this. You'll get your first lesson in skinning a beaver to-day, and
your first taste of beaver meat, too. Won't it be, or did you ever eat
beaver when you were with the Blackfeet?"

"No, Hugh," said Jack, "I don't think I ever tasted it. I'd like to."

"We'll have beaver tail soup, too," said Hugh. "This tail's only a
little one, but it'll be enough to give us a taste. Beaver tail used to
be considered great meat by the old-time trappers, something like back
fat among the Indians. I never cared much about beaver tail. It's too
oily for my taste. I should think those Indians we saw last summer up
in British Columbia would like it, but I like something a little more
solid.

"Lay that kitten in the shade," he went on, "and after we've got
through our breakfast we'll stretch that bear hide. You must remember
that that is like so much cash in our pocket. We've got to save all the
fur we get this trip, and no fur is ever safe until it's good and dry."

As they sat at breakfast, they looked toward the mountains. The morning
was still, and instead of the flames and the onrushing clouds of smoke
which they had seen the day before, there were now only a few smoke
wreaths lazily curling up toward the sky at occasional points on the
mountain side.

"Yes," said Hugh, as he waved his knife toward the range, "I reckon
that storm last night put out that fire. In the first place it wet all
the timber, green and dry, and then it wet all the dead underbrush and
the needles and dry branches with which the ground is covered. I think
everything got a good soaking, and I believe that now the fire will go
out. Anyway, I hope so."

"I suppose you have no more idea than I have how the fire got started?"
asked Jack.

"No," said Hugh, "no man can tell about that. A fire may get started in
forty ways. Usually, it's some fellow goes off and leaves his campfire
burning, and then a puff of wind comes up and blows some of the coals
into some dry grass or something that catches fire easy, or else the
Indians may set fire to the timber just for the purpose of driving the
game into some big stretch of country where it is easy to hunt it. Of
course, Indians get the credit for a whole lot of fires that they never
set, and I believe that half the fires are started by white men, just
from carelessness, like throwing down a lighted match, or chucking away
a cigarette that will burn for ten or fifteen minutes. On the prairie,
of course, lots of fires are started by the railroad. The sparks from
the locomotive fall among dry grass. Sometimes in the timber lightning
starts a fire. There are lots of ways in which the forests can be
burned, and as long as there's so much forest, and it's nobody's
business to look after it, of course, these fires will keep burning
year after year."

"Well now, son," said Hugh, "after they had finished eating, if you'll
get another bucket of water I'll wash the dishes, and then we can
stretch that bear hide."

Jack brought another bucket of water, which Hugh set on the fire, and
while it was heating he directed Jack to unlash the bear hide and to
drag it out a little away from camp. After this had been done, he sent
him down to look along the stream to see if he could find any birch or
alder brush, telling him if he could do so to get enough branches to
make thirty or forty wooden pins. Taking the ax, Jack went down the
stream and could find neither birch nor alder. He did find, however, a
thicket of small ash saplings, and cutting down half a dozen of these
he put them on his back and dragged them back to camp.

"Couldn't find any birch?" said Hugh. "Well, I don't know as I'm much
surprised. It's pretty well south for birch, but that makes better
pins than 'most anything else. However, this ash will have to do, I
reckon." He took the saplings and with the ax cut them into lengths of
about eight or ten inches, and then taking the thickest ones he split
them.

Then he said to Jack: "Get out your knife now, son, and help me whittle
pegs. We want quite a lot of them, for I would like to stretch this
hide nicely, and take it in in good shape."

For half or three-quarters of an hour the two were busily employed
whittling down and pointing pins, and they had a large pile of them
before Hugh declared that there were enough. They carried the pins over
to where the bear skin lay and threw them on the ground; then turning
the hide flesh side up they stretched it as nearly square as possible,
and then with their jack-knives went round its border, cutting holes
half an inch long in the margin of the hide at intervals of about six
inches. When these had all been cut, the hide was again spread out, and
Hugh, with the ax, drove two pins through holes, one in each side of
the neck, and then, stretching the hide to its full length, drove two
more in holes each about a foot on either side of the tail. Then two
pins were driven at one side of the hide between fore and hind leg, and
two on the other side, between fore and hind leg. The hide now was held
in position, and going about it, Hugh, with great care, drove in his
pins, stretching the hide so that it was nearly square, though a little
longer from head to tail than from side to side. Of course, the four
legs and the head made the square irregular, but, on the whole, Hugh
declared, after he had finished, that it was a very good job.

"I shouldn't have stretched this hide quite so large, son," he said,
"if it hadn't been so very well furred. Usually the hair is thin on the
flanks, and if you stretch a hide much you get places on either flank
just in front of the hind-legs where there is scarcely any hair at
all, and a bear hide that shows up like that never brings a good price.
You notice, though, that on this hide the fur is just about as good on
the belly as it is on the back. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if your
uncle bought this hide himself, instead of letting us sell it to some
fur buyer.

"Now, I don't want the sun to burn it," he went on, "so we'll just go
down to the creek and get a lot of willow brush and make a shade for
it. If the sun shines all day on this fat it will more than half cook
it, and that will spoil the hide."

Hugh and Jack went down to the stream, and cutting a lot of the
green-leafed willows, brought them up and so arranged them that the
direct rays of the sun were kept from the hide.

"Never dry a hide in the sun," said Hugh; "always in the shade. Let the
wind and the dryness in the air take up the moisture for you. Then your
hides will always sell well."

"Well, son," said Hugh, when the job of stretching the hide and shading
it was ended, "do you feel pretty wolfish?"

"Yes," said Jack, "I believe I'm ready for dinner."

"All right," said Hugh, "we'll skin that little beaver, and roast him
for our dinner. If we have any luck trapping you'll have plenty of
skinning to do before we get back, and I guess you'll be pretty sick of
it."

Returning to the camp they took the beaver kitten to the shade of one
of the cottonwood trees, and Hugh showed Jack how to skin it.

"You split it," said Hugh, "from the chin right straight down the
middle of the belly to the root of the tail, and then take off the skin
just as you would with any other animal. You must have a whetstone by
you and keep your knife sharp, and be careful in your cutting so that
you make no holes in the hide. At the same time you must skin close to
the hide, and not leave any fat on it. When you get to the legs, cut
the skin all around just above the feet on fore and hind legs, and at
the tail cut all around the bone, just above where the scales begin. In
skinning around the eyes, see that you don't cut the eyelids, and when
you get to the ears, cut them off close to the hide on the inside. Now,
go ahead and see what you can do."

Jack split the beaver as directed, and carefully worked back the hide,
first on one side and then on the other. It was slow business. In his
effort not to cut holes in the skin he made short cuts, and the peeling
off of the hide seemed to go very slowly. However, he worked it along
with much patience until he got to the legs and the tail, and cut them
around, as Hugh had instructed.

Meantime, Hugh had gone off and cut some long willow sprouts, and
returning to where Jack sat, occupied himself in making a circular
hoop, which, he told Jack, was to stretch the skin on. He bent a long
twig into a circle, and with the slender branches on the end tied the
smaller and larger ends together. By this time Jack had the beaver
about half skinned, and Hugh, drawing his knife, took hold of one side
of the hide and helped, and in a very few minutes the carcass was free
and lying on the grass, while beside it lay the skin, flesh side up.

"Well, son," said Hugh, "that is a pretty good job, considering it's
the first beaver you ever skinned. It will be a good practice for you.
You see, if we should ever be lucky enough to get half a dozen beaver
in a morning it will take us about all day long to skin them."

"Whew!" said Jack, as he stood up and stretched his cramped limbs,
"that's something like work. I guess most fellows, when they think
of trapping, think only of how good they feel when they catch their
beaver, and how good they feel when they sell the skins. They don't
remember how much work it takes to get the skins ready for market."

"That's so, son," said Hugh, "but then, I guess that's true about 'most
everything in life. The miner thinks only about the rich haul that he
is going to make; he doesn't reckon on the number of hours that he's
got to swing a pick or a sledge or hold a drill before he strikes pay
streak. He just thinks of striking it rich, and then getting the money
for his mine. There's lots of human nature in all of us.

"Well, now," he went on, "the first thing we want to do is to go
down to the creek and get rid of some of this grease that we have
accumulated, and then we can come back and cook our dinner."

It took a lot of scrubbing with soap and sand to free themselves from
the oil of the bear and the beaver, and the smell of the grease they
could not get rid of. When they had returned to the tent Hugh sent Jack
to cut a long, green, forked stick. Sharpening this at its larger end,
he drove it firmly into the ground in such a position that it would
overhang the fire. He tied a stout cord to the hind-legs of the little
beaver, built up his fire of dry cottonwood, and let it burn down to
good, red coals, and then hung the beaver to the fork of a green stick
so that it swung directly over the coals. Then he told Jack to get a
long, green, willow twig, and from time to time to give the beaver's
carcass a twirl, so that it would constantly keep turning over the
fire. Then Hugh himself began preparations for the rest of the dinner,
which, after all, consisted only of bread and coffee. The hot coals
soon caused the grease to drip from the meat, which slowly twirled
over the fire, and by the time Hugh had baked his bread and cooked his
coffee he declared that the meat ought to be done. It was taken from
the fire and a slash with a knife showed that it was cooked through.
Hugh divided it into two pieces, and putting it on two tin plates, gave
one to Jack and took one himself.

"Now, son," he said, "try this meat, and see how you like it. Most of
us think that kitten is pretty good food. Of course, it isn't like fat
cow, or even like mountain sheep or elk, but to my mind it's quite as
good as any bird or fish that there is."

For some time Jack's mouth was so full that he could not comment on the
dinner, but, after a time, he declared in response to a question by
Hugh, that the meat was "prime." "But what is this queer, half-bitter
taste that it has, Hugh?" he asked.

"Why, son, that's extract of cottonwood and willow bark. Don't you know
that is what the beaver feed on, and, of course, the flesh tastes of
it? This little fellow is not very strong, but I've sometimes eaten old
beaver that was so bitter that you really didn't want to eat much of
it."

"Well," said Jack, "this is about the tenderest meat that I've ever
eaten, and I like the bitter flavor."

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's mighty nice, and then this fellow is so young
that you don't have to mind the ribs at all; you can chew them right up
and swallow them down."

"Well," said Jack, "I say it's prime, and I hope we'll have lots more
beaver meat before we go in."

"No doubt we will," said Hugh; "but no doubt, also, it will not be
as good as this has been. It's not every day that one gets a kitten
beaver, and it's mighty poor policy to kill them. You see this little
bit of a hide isn't worth anything, whereas, if the kitten had been
allowed to grow a year more the hide would have been worth, maybe, four
or five dollars. Now it isn't worth more than seventy-five cents."

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "if I had known that perhaps I wouldn't have
shot it, but you see, I didn't know that kitten ought not to be
killed, and if I had known about it I had no time to think."

"No," said Hugh; "it was all right to kill this one, but I'm just
telling you so that after this you'll know about kittens. We try always
to set our traps so as to catch only the old beaver. Of course, Indians
will sometimes tear down a dam and kill all the beaver in a pond, but
then Indians haven't much idea of looking out for the future. I say,
kill what old beaver you can and leave the young ones to grow up. If
you don't get them next year somebody else will, and we'll hope that
whoever does will have sense enough to spare the young ones."

When dinner was over and the dishes washed, Hugh told Jack to bring
him the little beaver's hide and the willow hoop that he had made, and
then after cutting holes all around the margin of the hide, he took a
string and passed it through one of the holes, around the hoop, through
another hole and around the hoop again, and so went all around the skin
until it was fairly and evenly stretched on the willow hoop.

"There, son," he said to Jack, "that is the way to stretch a beaver
hide. Now hang this up somewhere in the brush where the sun can't get
at it, nor the wolves and coyotes, either, and by to-morrow morning it
will be dry enough so that we can fold it and put it in the pack."

Jack soon found a good place in the shade near the tent and hung the
skin up, well out of the reach of any animals that might be prowling
about.

When he had returned to the tent, Hugh had about finished washing the
dishes, and Jack wiped them and they were put away in a corner of the
tent.

"Hugh," said Jack, "you told me to hang the beaver skin where the
animals could not get at it, but what about that bear skin out there?
May not some of the animals trouble that to-night?"

"Not so, son; the smell of the bear skin ought rather to frighten off
the animals. At the same time I haven't very much confidence in the
miserable coyotes that this country seems to be full of, so I am going
to put a scare out around that hide to-night, and to-morrow morning you
will see that nothing has disturbed it."

"Well, I shall be mighty glad to see what you do to it, Hugh," said
Jack.

"Oh," said Hugh, "there is nothing special about it. I'm going to
protect that hide by taking advantage of the cunning of the coyote. He
is always on the lookout for traps and snares of one kind or another,
and he won't go close to where he thinks there is a trap. Now, if I put
four sticks in the ground at the corner of that bear skin, and run a
little string from the tops of these four sticks all around the hide,
the coyotes will not pass under that string, because they'll think that
maybe it's some kind of a trap to catch them. You see, the coyotes are
like some men you have heard of; sometimes they are a little too smart."

When Hugh had finished his pipe Jack said, "What shall we do this
afternoon, Hugh? You were going to visit this beaver meadow this
morning if we hadn't had that bear skin to attend to. Is there time
enough for us to go down there now?"

"Plenty of time," said Hugh. "I was just going to propose it. There's
an awful big stretch of beaver work here and I guess that a great deal
of it has been abandoned. We want to find out where the beaver are now,
and when we've learned that and something about their ways, we can get
out our traps. If you like, I'll go down with you now and look for
ponds that have beaver in them."

"All right," said Jack; "I'm ready."

"Well," said Hugh, "let's go on now, and I reckon this is as good a
time as any to christen those rubber boots that we bought in Laramie.
We are likely to find it pretty wet down there, and I don't care to
take a horse in those thick willows until I find out a little about
them myself. An old beaver meadow is a mighty mean place to take
horses. There are bogs and beaver sloughs and old abandoned beaver
holes, and it's easy for a horse to fall down, and sometimes mighty
hard to get him up again."

Hugh and Jack donned their rubber boots, and taking their rifles,
started down toward the main stream. The meadow here was miles in width
and it was quite uncertain how far they could go. As well as they could
see, much of the meadow was overgrown with tall willows, but on the
other hand, there seemed to be many open, grassy meadows.

Before plunging into the willows they followed along the edge for some
little distance and at last Hugh said, "Let's turn in here, son, there
seems to be a game trail running in the direction we should go." Sure
enough, they found a well-traveled and dry game trail which showed that
last autumn it had been traveled by bands of elk, for the bark was
rubbed off the willows as high as Hugh's head, where great horns of the
bulls had forced the stems of the brush apart on either side of the
trail. The way led just in the direction they wanted to go, that is,
across the valley, and ten or fifteen minutes' brisk tramping brought
them to the edge of a green, grassy meadow of considerable extent. Just
as they reached the edge of the willows Hugh paused and motioned with
his hand, beckoning Jack to come up to his side. "Look there, son," he
said, pointing, and Jack saw, only about forty yards away, two bob-cats
pulling and tearing at some small thing on the ground, a little
distance out in the meadow. Hugh said, "You try to kill the one that is
nearest to the brush, and I'll see if I can take the other one on the
jump." Jack leveled his rifle and took a careful side aim at the breast
of one of the cats, which stood facing him. On the crack of the gun the
one he had fired at fell over, while the other jumped high in the air,
and when it struck the ground again stood looking to see whence the
noise had come. It looked only for an instant, for then Hugh's gun also
spoke, and the animal fell over.

"Well," said Hugh, as he reloaded his gun, "I wouldn't have looked for
those two bob-cats in such a place as this. I reckon their hides are
not worth much, but they might make you a pair of shaps, son; let's go
over and get them and see what it is that they were eating."

Walking over to the place, they found that the bob-cats had been
devouring the carcass of a little spotted fawn.

"Look there, now," said Hugh; "that's the sort of work these fellows
are at day in and day out all the year round. Of course, after a while
the fawns get too big and shy for them to tackle, but these bob-cats
are all the time killing something that ought to be allowed to live.
I suppose that every two or three days for the next month or two each
of these cats will kill a young deer, or a young antelope, or maybe
a young elk. That would make twenty head of young game animals to a
cat each summer. It's mighty lucky that there ain't any more of those
fellows in the mountains than there is." He stooped over and looked at
the head of the lynx he had shot, and then at the one that had fallen
to Jack's gun. The latter was shot through the neck and showed a small
hole where the bullet went in and a large one where it came out. The
lynx he had killed had only one bullet hole in its neck, the ball
having entered its mouth and having knocked out some of its front teeth.

"You ought to shoot closer, son," he said to Jack. "Every hole cut in a
skin takes a little off its value. You might remember this."

[Illustration: TWO BOB-CATS PULLING AND TEARING AT SOME SMALL THING ON
THE GROUND.--_Page 106._]

"Yes, Hugh, I know I ought to have shot it through the head, but the
range was short and I was a little afraid that if I fired at its head I
might overshoot."

"Well," said Hugh, "of course, you might have done so, and at the same
time you ought to know how to hold your gun so that you would know just
where the bullet would hit at every range from twenty yards up to two
hundred."

"Well," said Jack, "I have been pretty lucky with my shooting, but you
know that I can't shoot like you, Hugh; and I don't believe I ever will
be able to."

"Nonsense," said Hugh. "When you once know your gun thoroughly,
provided it's a good one, you can shoot just where you want to, and
just as well as any man alive."

"Well," said Jack, "I'll try to be more careful after this. Lord knows,
I want to be a good shot, but you can never make me believe that I'll
ever learn to shoot as well as you do, Hugh."

"Yes, you will," said Hugh. "Now, let's see what we can do with these
bob-cats, son, and then go on a little further and find out something
about how these beaver down here are living."

Hugh took from his pocket a buckskin string and tied the two cats
together. Jack climbed up among some stout willow stems and by his
weight bent them down to within five or six feet of the ground, and
then Hugh hung the cats across them. When Jack came down the stems rose
nearly to their former height and left the lynxes suspended well out of
reach of any prowling animal. Then the two went on.

As they walked on over the meadow where the thick grass stood
knee-high, the ground became more and more moist, until presently the
water quite covered the soil.

"We must look out here, son," said Hugh; "we may strike bad places
anywhere and must go carefully."

Presently they were stopped by a ditch two or three feet wide, in which
a few inches of water seemed to stand. Hugh stepped across it, finding
the bank on the other side firm enough, and Jack jumped after him.

"This," said Hugh, "is one of those ditches that I was telling you
about that the beaver dig to float their feed down to their ponds. If
we could follow it back to the brush we would find that the willows all
along it had been cut off."

A little beyond this they came to a place where the water was deeper
and where the mud under the water was soft, and here they stopped and
turning up the stream, followed as nearly as they could the edge of
the old pond. Standing in the grass, out where the water was deeper,
Hugh pointed out a number of little mounds overgrown with grass and low
willows, which he told Jack were old and long-deserted beaver houses.
"If we could get out to them," he said, "we should find under that
brush a solid foundation of sticks and mud. Those houses will last for
a long time, for as the sticks are kept wet all the time they don't
rot, but just become water-soaked and will last pretty nearly forever."

The grass, the mud and water, and the frequent detours they had to
make made their progress up stream slow, but at length they came to a
grass-grown wall a foot or two higher than the rest of the ground, and
when he saw that, Hugh gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

"Now," he said, "I think we'll have better going. This, you see, is an
old dam, and the chances are we can get on it and cross the stream, and
on the other side, where the bottom is narrower, we shall have better
going." It turned out just as he had said. The dam, though soft in
places, was generally so firm that they could walk along on it pretty
comfortably. Over toward its further end it was partly broken down
and the water of the stream trickled over and through it for a width
of about twenty feet, but by carefully feeling their way and at every
step testing the dam with their feet, they managed to cross the running
water, and from there to the other side of the valley the dam was firm.

On this west side of the stream the moist bottom was much narrower and
they presently found themselves on firm ground, and started to walk
briskly up the creek.

"All this work here," said Hugh, "is very old, and I haven't seen any
sign of beaver being here for a long time. We'll go up stream as far as
we can, but we must cross to the other side before it gets night. We'd
be pretty badly off if we were caught in this beaver swamp after dark.
We'd sure have to spend the night here. I wouldn't be much surprised if
we found that we had to move camp and go up further toward the head of
the stream. The beaver have certainly left this part of it."

They hurried on, and for a mile or two nothing was said. The sun was
hot and the rubber boots which both wore seemed clumsy and heavy. Jack
felt pretty tired but he said nothing of this to Hugh. Presently, from
the dry upland where they were walking they could see ahead of them a
pond, and then, a little later, the dam which held back its waters.

"There," said Hugh, "that looks to me like fresh work. Don't you see
there in that dam some green leaves sticking up? That looks as if the
dam had been lately mended; so lately that the twigs and brush used in
repairing it have not yet died and lost their leaves."

Jack could see this, and then as he looked over the pond he saw a
long wake in the water close to the bank, and caught Hugh's arm and
said, "Look there. Hugh, away over there under the bank. What is that
swimming? Of course, it may be a duck, but may it not be a beaver?"

Hugh looked carefully, and presently the object which was swimming
passed a little bay so that it was distinctly seen as a small, round
object. "That's a beaver, son," said Hugh. "You can see for yourself
that it isn't a duck, and the only other thing it could be would be an
otter or muskrat. It is too big for a muskrat and it doesn't seem like
an otter. There are beaver down there, and what's more, they haven't
been disturbed for a long time, or else they wouldn't be out swimming
around like that in the heat of the day. Let's go down and take a look
around; but keep quiet; don't make any quick motions, and whatever you
see, don't fire your gun. If there are any beaver there we want to get
some of them."

The two walked slowly down toward the dam, taking advantage of whatever
little cover there was in the way of inequalities of the ground or of
willow brush. Down close to the water's edge grew a good many willows,
and they were thus able to get quite close to the dam, and sitting down
there they watched the water. For a long time, as it seemed to Jack,
it was absolutely still, and then, while he was staring as hard as he
could at the farther bank and the place where the dam met it, Hugh
touched him and made a little motion with his head, and Jack, following
the direction of his companion's eyes, saw, not more than twenty-five
yards off, two beaver swimming down toward the dam, each with his head
slightly turned to one side, and each dragging after him a green stick
about three or four feet long. The two animals came on down to the
dam, and without the slightest suspicion that they were being watched,
crawled out of the water, dragging their sticks after them. When they
left the water they were so close to the watchers that they were
hidden from them by the dam, and just what they were doing could not be
seen. Jack touched Hugh, and when he bent down his head, whispered to
him, "Couldn't we crawl up a little closer and watch them?" Hugh shook
his head. A few moments later the two beaver entered the water again
and swam off up the pond. When they had disappeared Hugh touched Jack,
and turning about, they crept away among the willows in the direction
from which they had just come.

When they had left the dam some way behind them, Hugh stopped and said
to Jack, "Now, let us go on up this pond, and try to see where these
beaver are living and where they're working. Keep out of sight as much
as you can. I don't want them to know that there are any people about.
It looks to me as if nobody had been trapping here for years, and as
if we had struck something good. Now, come on, I want to walk fast and
find out all I can to-night, and then we've got to get back to the camp
as quickly as we can." They hurried along up the stream, Hugh looking
carefully at the willows and aspens along the border of the meadow, and
sometimes going down toward the edge of the pond. They crossed a number
of places where branches, some of them quite large, had been dragged
over the ground, but Hugh contented himself with saying to Jack, "You
see, these beaver are working all along here, and they have to go quite
a little way for their food."

The beaver pond was quite a long one, but at last they reached its
head. Here they came upon a game trail which seemed to lead back across
the stream, and turned into it in the hope that it might lead them to
the other side. From one high point above the pond they got a good view
of its whole length, and Hugh pointed out half a dozen grayish brown
objects raised two or three feet above the water's surface, which he
told Jack were beaver houses. "It may be, son," he said, "that we'll
have to bring our outfit across and camp up at the head of this pond.
It's too far from our present camp for us to trap here conveniently."

The game trail led them across the wide stream valley by a good, hard
road. At only one point was it deep and muddy, and just here by good
luck they found an old cottonwood tree, felled long ago by the beavers,
which bridged the bad place.

Once on the other side of the valley, they turned sharply down stream,
and after a long walk, reached the game trail by which they had crossed
it earlier in the day. They went down this until they came to the place
where the lynxes had been hung up, and getting these, they went back to
camp, reaching it just about sundown.

"Well," said Hugh, "I feel as if we'd had quite a walk. I guess you are
ready for supper, aren't you, son?"

"You bet I am," said Jack; "but the first thing I want to do is to shed
these rubber boots. They seem to me the heaviest things I ever had on
my feet, and I believe I've got three or four blisters from walking in
them. I'd rather go barefoot than wear these again."

"Don't you believe it, son," said Hugh. "You'll be mighty glad of them
boots before many days, now. I expect before long to have you wallowing
around in the mud and water like a terrapin."

CHAPTER XI

INDIAN BEAVER LORE

The two ate their supper that night with the eagerness of hungry and
tired men. Jack thought that the term "wolfish," that Hugh sometimes
used to express hunger, had a good deal of meaning. He was so greedy
over his food that when the first helping was put on his plate he began
to bolt it, as he said to Hugh, "like a hungry dog."

"Better eat slowly," said Hugh. "You'll get a good deal more comfort
out of your food and it will do you a whole lot more good. As a rule
the hungrier you are the slower you ought to eat. I've seen a number of
starving people in my time, and the longer they'd been without food the
less we gave them at a time. It makes a man pretty mad, though, when he
is just ravenous, if he can't pitch right into his grub and eat all he
wants."

"Yes," said Jack, "I've always heard that people that had been without
food or without water for a long time ought to have their food or their
water given them a very little at a time."

"That is so," said Hugh. "If a man takes all he wants to it's pretty
sure to make him sick. I remember one time when I made quite a ride
one day in about eleven hours, about seventy-five miles we called it.
There was a Pawnee Indian that ran alongside of my horse the whole way.
In other words, for eleven hours he ran about seven miles an hour.
Sometimes he slowed down and got a mile or two behind, and then he'd
run harder and catch up to me and keep right alongside the loping horse
for hours. When we got to the Republican River I was good and tired. I
wouldn't let my horse drink at first, and just wetted my head without
drinking, but that Indian sat down on the bank and borrowed my quart
cup and drank it seven times full while he was sitting there, and then
he was sick--Lord! how sick he was. When my horse had cooled off I let
him drink, and then we crossed the river and camped on the other side."

"Well, why did you make that long ride?" asked Jack.

"Well," said Hugh, "we had gone down from the old Pawnee agency to
take back south some horses that had been stolen, and when we were
coming back we passed through some white settlements, and the white
men being new to the country, and not knowing anything about Indians,
wanted to kill my people and arrest me. I had all I could do to get the
bunch through without anybody getting hurt, and to keep out of trouble
myself, but I finally did it, and when we got out of the settlement
I told the Indians that we'd all better make for home, and that we'd
better separate in doing it. This Indian, Sun Chief, and I came along
together. They all got in finally without any more trouble."

"When was that, Hugh?" asked Jack.

"Why," said Hugh, "that was in '67 or '68, I think. It was just after
the railroad had passed through Eastern Nebraska."

By this time supper was over and the dishes washed, and though Hugh and
Jack were tired it hardly seemed time to go to bed.

"I wish, Hugh," said Jack, "that you would tell me something about what
we saw to-day, and something more about the way the beavers live."

"Sure", said Hugh; "I'll tell you all I know, but that is not much
yet, as far as what we saw to-day goes. We found a dam and some
houses, where, I am sure, there are quite a number of beaver, maybe
twenty-five or thirty, and maybe more, and from what we saw, I am
pretty sure that they are gentle and unsuspicious. We ought to be
able to get some of them, but until we've looked about more I can't
tell much. What I think we'd better do is spend a day or two more
prospecting, especially on this side of the creek, and then we'll move
camp according to what we see, and then go to work to set some traps.
You saw enough to-day to get some idea of how the beaver live. You saw
an old dam and a new one, and you saw some houses. Did you ever see a
muskrat house back East?"

"Yes," said Jack, "I've seen a good many."

"Did you ever see one opened?" asked Hugh.

"No. I never did," said Jack.

"Well, now, a muskrat and a beaver are pretty close relations, I take
it. They live in much the same way, and build houses that are a good
deal alike. Of course, a muskrat doesn't build dams, and a muskrat's
tail is flattened from side to side, while the beaver's tail is
flattened from above downward, but in many ways they are a good deal
alike. They both live in their houses during the winter, and if they're
driven from their houses they swim under the water to some place where
there's an air-hole in the ice and where they can put up their noses to
breathe. Of course, both beaver and muskrat must have air. A muskrat
builds his house by heaping up mud and reeds and grass in a shallow
pond at a distance from the bank. The beaver builds his by heaping up
the same sort of stuff, only bigger, that is to say, sticks and brush
and mud in a shallow pond away from the bank. Each sort of house has in
it one or more rooms with a kind of a bench all round the walls where
the animals sit or sleep, and with a hole somewhere near the middle of
the floor leading down through the bottom of the house and out into the
open water. I have seen beaver houses opened. Generally, they have
only one big room, but sometimes a big house will have two or three
rooms in it, and each room has a separate passage out into the water.
I think that perhaps several families take part in building such a big
house as that, and each family has its separate home.

"Beaver, you know, don't always live in houses. There's a kind that
people call bank beaver, and they just dig a hole in the bank under
water, which slopes up a little and finally gets above the level of
the water, and there they dig out quite a good-sized room not so very
far under ground. These bank beaver live for the most part in rivers
or in natural lakes, and as a rule they don't build any dams. They are
just like any other beaver, but I expect they live in the way that is
handiest to them."

"Yes," said Jack; "'adapt themselves to their environment,' as Uncle
George says."

"Yes, I reckon that's it," replied Hugh. "But those words are a trifle
too long for me to understand. Now," Hugh went on, "this room that the
bank beaver lives in is quite a big one, maybe four feet or so across,
with a sort of bench or shelf all round it, where the beaver sit and
sleep, and, of course, with the water in the middle, where the tunnel
that they have dug comes up into the room. Usually there's a growth of
willows or other brush on the ground above it, and quite a thickness
of earth, so that there's no danger of any animal that walks around on
the ground putting his foot through into the room. Of course, these
holes are usually dug so that the mouths of them are always under water
and so that the water always stands as near as possible at the same
level, but if a big flood comes along, these bank beavers sometimes get
drowned out, and have to leave their homes and sit around on the bank
and in the brush waiting for the water to go down. I remember once,
quite a number of years ago, making a big killing of beaver at a time
like that."

"Where was that, Hugh?" asked Jack.

"I'd been hunting through the winter," said Hugh, "supplying meat to
some of the forts along the Missouri River near where Bismarck is now;
Fort Stephenson, Fort Lincoln, and sometimes Fort Rice. I would kill
my meat and then pack it in to the posts. Game was plenty at the heads
of all the streams running into the Missouri, and it was no trick at
all to get what meat I wanted. There were no buffalo, but plenty of
elk, deer, and antelope. I was pretty lucky about my hunting and got
meat when the Indians couldn't, and two or three times that winter I
came pretty near having a row with them. They had a notion that I had
some sort of medicine that brought the game to me and kept it away from
them, and some of the village Gros Ventres said they were going to kill
me if I didn't leave the country, but, of course, that was just their
talk, and I stayed there and kept on hunting."

"I wish you'd tell me about that, too, Hugh," said Jack.

"Well, I can only tell you about one thing at a time. I thought you
wanted to hear about how I got those beaver."

"All right," replied Jack, "tell me about that first, and then about
the Indians."

"Well," Hugh continued, "I was up quite a way on the Little Missouri,
not anywhere near the head, of course, but about forty miles from the
mouth, when there came a big rain and a warm spell, and all the snow
melted at once, and pretty nearly the whole bottom of the river filled
up. The beaver on that creek are all bank beaver. There are no houses
at all, except maybe a few on some little creeks that run into the
river. The weather got so bad and rainy that I started down to go
to Berthold, and as I traveled down the river about the first things
that I began to see were beaver sitting around on the banks and on
driftwood, stupid and confused, and not knowing enough to jump into
the water when I came along. Of course, I began to kill them, shooting
them through the head, and I soon saw that I had a big job on my hands,
and that I could kill more in half a day than I could skin in two or
three days. Besides that, I had been out some time and was short of
ammunition. What I did was to kill in the morning what beaver I could
skin in the rest of the day, and for two or three days I was kept
mighty busy, and working hard late into the night. Then the river went
down and the beaver disappeared, all going back into their holes again,
I suppose. I made quite a bit of money on that trip, and if I had had
a man with me to skin all the time I could have got twice as many as
I did, maybe three times as many. I think if I'd had a helper I could
have killed one hundred and twenty-five beaver without trying very
hard. I've often thought if a man could go down the Little Missouri
in a boat at such a time, and with one of these little pea rifles, he
could get an awful lot of fur."

"But I don't understand, Hugh," inquired Jack, "how the beaver let you
come right up to them and shoot them."

"Well," said Hugh, "of course I didn't walk right up to them, making
plenty of noise; I went as quietly as I could and shot as carefully as
I could, but the beaver seemed to have lost their wits. They weren't
shy and watchful, as beaver 'most always are. They just sat there in
the rain and looked miserable."

"Dear me," commented Jack; "if you could find beaver as plenty as that
only a few years ago, what immense numbers of them there must have been
in the old times."

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's wonderful to think of it, of course, and yet
you must remember that all the regular trapping had stopped more than
twenty years before that, and that it was only once in a while a man
came along and set some traps, and even then he didn't make a business
of trapping. He got just a few beaver and then went on. And it's
wonderful how quickly any sort of wild animal increases if they're let
alone. I believe that you might trap out all the beaver, except one
pair, from a stream, and then leave that stream alone for twenty years
and go back there and you'd find just as many beaver there as there
were the first time you visited it."

"That brings up another thing, Hugh, that I wanted to ask you about,"
said Jack. "How many young ones do the beaver have?"

"I think," replied Hugh, "that they have four, and maybe sometimes six.
I know you take any place where there are three or four beaver houses,
and if you can go there and watch them, and the beaver are not too
shy, you'll see an awful lot of kittens playing around at the right
time of the day. I don't believe that the beaver breed until they are
two years old, because more than once I've seen what I took to be one
family, which consisted of two old ones, four or five nearly as big as
the old ones, and four or five only half grown. That makes me think
that the young ones stay with their parents until they are considerably
more than one year old, but when the young ones are about full grown,
I expect the old ones drive them off. Beaver are pretty mean; they're
great things to fight among themselves, and I've seen many a one all
scarred and cut about his head and neck and shoulders, where he'd been
fighting with another one. After the full-grown ones are driven off
by their parents, I reckon they start out and either build themselves
houses somewhere nearby, or perhaps go on up or down the stream, and
either join some other colony, or build a dam for themselves."

"I don't understand, Hugh, how it is that the beaver know enough to
build these dams which are strong enough to hold back the water in
these creeks."

"Well, son, I don't believe that I can help you out a bit. All I know
is, that the beaver do it, and that their dams are strong and hold
back the water, and that if you go and break down a dam, so as to let
the water run out of the pond, the beaver will come down that night
and mend the dam, and the next morning you'll find the pond full, or
nearly full. Somehow or other, they understand just how to put together
sticks and stones and mud so that the dam will hold. Sometimes the dam
runs straight across the creek, sometimes it curves a little downward,
that is to say, the hollow of the dam looks up the stream; sometimes it
curves a little the other way, so that the hollow of the dam looks down
the stream. You'd think that this was the strongest way to build, and
it has seemed to me the dams built in that shape are usually found on
the strongest running streams, but I can't be sure about it, because I
don't know that I ever took particular notice. Anyhow, I know that all
people that I've ever seen, Indians and whites alike, think that the
beaver is smart."

"I don't wonder," said Jack, "and now I remember," he went on, "that
the Blackfeet have a lot of beliefs about the beaver. They think he's
strong medicine."

"Sure, they do," said Hugh; "they have lots of beliefs about it, and
they think it's one of the greatest animal helpers."

"I know they do," said Jack. "I remember now, that one time Joe took me
to a ceremony where old Iron Shirt unwrapped a beaver bundle. I didn't
know whether I would be allowed to see it, but Joe asked Iron Shirt,
and he told me to come. I didn't understand what it was all about, but
they unwrapped the bundle, which had in it a great lot of the skins of
birds and small animals, and while it was being unwrapped, and after it
was opened, Iron Shirt prayed and sang, and then two or three women who
were present to help, danced around on their knees in the queerest way
you ever saw. Joe said they were imitating the beaver."

"Yes," said Hugh, "I saw one of those bundles unwrapped one time. It is
a big ceremony. You know they have lots of stories about people that
have been helped by the beaver. There's one of those stories about a
poor young man who loved a certain girl, but he was so badly off and
was so homely that she wouldn't have anything to do with him, so he
went off and wandered over the prairie, feeling awful badly and wanting
to die, and when night came he lay down by the stream to go to sleep,
and while he was lying there a strange young man came to him and asked
him to go to his father's lodge. The young man walked down to the edge
of the stream and the poor boy followed him. When they got to the
water's edge, the young man told the poor boy to follow him, and do
just as he did. Then the young man dived into the water, and the poor
boy followed him, and presently both came up inside of a lodge, and
there sitting on the seats about the lodge were the old beaver, and
when they got inside of the lodge the young man turned into a beaver,
too. Then the old beaver spoke to the poor boy, and told him that he
knew all about his trouble and wanted to help him, and asked him to
spend the winter in his lodge. The poor boy was glad to do so, and
during winter the old beaver taught him all their medicine, and gave
him all their power.

"Then the next spring the poor boy went out of the lodge and joined
a party of his people who were going to war, and by the help of the
beaver he killed the first enemy that they met, and scalped him, and
this was the first time scalps were ever taken. This gave the poor boy
great credit, and soon after he was able to marry the beautiful girl,
and to become a head warrior, and later a big chief."

"That's a pretty good story, Hugh," said Jack.

"Yes," replied Hugh, "it's a pretty good story, but it is like a good
many of those Indian stories which often have for their hero some poor,
miserable young fellow who, being helped by some animal--his dream,
they call it--comes out all right, and gets the thing that he wants."

"Of course, the Blackfeet," Hugh went on, "have a great deal of respect
for the power of what they call the under-water people--_Suye tuppi_. I
reckon you've heard about them."

"Yes," replied Jack, "they are people and animals that live at the
bottom of lakes and streams, and have great power."

"That's it," said Hugh. "But it isn't the Blackfeet alone that have
these strong beliefs about the beaver. I guess all Indians are alike in
the way they look at these animals. I know the Pawnees and Cheyennes
feel the same way. Both tribes have queer stories about them. I reckon
I never told you about one thing that is said to have happened to a
young Cheyenne man a long time ago."

"I don't remember it if you have, Hugh. What was it?"

"Well," said Hugh, "in ancient times, the Indians used to kill lots
of beaver. They liked the meat, and they used to make robes of the
hides. In those days they had no steel traps, and the only way that
they could get beaver was either to shoot them with their arrows or to
tear down the dams, and when the water had run off, to get them out
of their houses. It was a good deal of work to pull down the houses,
and they used to train small dogs to go into the holes in the houses
and worry the beaver until they would get mad and chase the little dog
out through the mouth of the passage way, and there the Indian would
be waiting with a club to knock the beaver on the head. Sometimes,
however, the beaver would not come out far enough to be hit, and then
they'd have to go into the house and kill them there, or pull them out.

"Once a party of people had torn down a dam and killed a number of
beaver from the houses. But one man was working at a house, and
couldn't get the beaver out of it. His dog would go in and bark, but
the beaver would not come out to where the young man could kill him;
so the young fellow got down and crawled into the passageway, and
presently got close enough to the beaver so that he could get hold of
its foot. He wasn't strong enough to pull it out, so he backed out of
the hole and called to a woman on the bank to bring him a rope. When
she had brought it, he crawled into the hole again and tied it to the
beaver's foot, and then came out, and three or four people began to
pull on the rope, so as to haul the beaver into the daylight. He came
very slowly, moving forward only a short distance and then holding
on, but at last they began to see something coming, and presently,
when they had pulled this thing to the mouth of the hole, they were
astonished and frightened to see that instead of being a beaver it was
a queer little old white man whom they were pulling out by the rope
tied to one of his legs. When they saw what they had at the end of the
rope, they were all so frightened that most them ran away; but the
young man who had tied on the rope, before running away, went down to
the beaver house and took the rope off the old man's leg so that he
might be free again. Then he climbed up onto the bank and hung the rope
on a tree, and made a prayer, and went away himself."

"What do you suppose it was they saw, Hugh?" said Jack.

"Bless you, son, I have no more idea than you have. I reckon that what
they saw was a beaver, but of course that was not what they thought
they saw. You'll find lots of Indians that imagine that they've seen
things, or that things have happened to them that you and I would say
couldn't possibly have been seen, or couldn't possibly have happened.
The Indians have got pretty strong imaginations and then again maybe
they have eyes to see things that we white folks can't see. I have seen
a whole lot of queer things in Indian camp, things that I couldn't
explain, things that I've seen with my own eyes, yet that most white
people would say were just my imagination."

"I know, Hugh; you told me about some of those things, and, of course,
I can't see how they could possibly have happened, and yet because you
saw them I believe that they did happen."

"Of course, son, you know that I think that they happened; but, of
course, maybe I might have been fooled about them.

"Well, to go back to the beaver," he went on; "'most all Indians that
I ever had anything to do with believe in a big old white beaver that
is the chief of all beaver. I guess nobody ever saw him, but lots of
people have seen him in dreams, especially in dreams where they went
to the lodge of all the beavers. That is a dream that has come to a
good many men, at least you often hear stories about people who have
had the dream. This old white beaver is of great power. He knows about
everything that has happened, and if by any chance he doesn't know
about it himself, he calls all the other beaver together and asks them,
and it's pretty sure that some one of them has some knowledge about the
matter.

"You see, the beaver are scattered all over, inhabit all the waters,
and are active, and going about all through the hours of darkness, so
they are very likely to know about things that have happened, about
which all the people are ignorant; such things, for example, as women
being captured and carried off at night, or war parties traveling at
night. If a man has a beaver for his dream, he is pretty likely to be
lucky in everything that he undertakes."

"All the animals seem to have been very important to the Indians," said
Jack. "They didn't exactly worship them, but they believe that they had
great power to help."

"Yes," agreed Hugh, "that is true, of course. The Indians pray to the
spirits of the animals, and to the spirits of the mountains and rocks
and trees, and ask them to help them, but the way I understand it, they
don't worship any of these things. They pray to them just the same
as white folks pray to saints, but way up above all these different
spirits or medicines that the Indians talk about, there is some great
person who has the power, and to him all these prayers are carried by
the spirits that are prayed to. It's a mighty complicated thing, you
see, son," he went on. "I can't understand it, and I reckon the Indians
themselves don't understand it much better than I do, and I know they
can't explain it. Some of them have tried to, but they get just about
as far as I get, and then they are stuck."

"Well, I suppose religion is a pretty hard subject anyhow, Hugh,"
remarked Jack.

"I suppose it is," said Hugh, "and I reckon if you were to take a
hundred white men out of the same church, and were to ask each one of
them just exactly what his beliefs are, you would find that no two of
the hundred would exactly agree."

They sat for a little while looking at the fire, and then Hugh said,
"Well, son, we've had a pretty long day and I reckon it's about time to
go to bed."

"That will suit me," said Jack, and they turned into their blankets.

CHAPTER XII

PROSPECTING FOR FUR

It was not yet light next morning when Jack was awakened by a dull
tapping, not often repeated, and as his senses grew clearer it seemed
to him that the sound was like that made by an animal stamping its
hoof on the ground. He crept silently out of his blankets, felt about
for his cartridge belt and gun, and when he had found both, crept to
the door. He had hardly got there when he heard again, more faintly, a
stamping of a hoof, and then a snort which he knew was made by a deer.

Meantime, Hugh had awakened, and, raised on his elbow, was watching
Jack. The light was still so faint that objects could hardly be
distinguished, but gradually, as the eastern sky began to flush and
the light crept up toward zenith, Jack made out a deer standing fifty
or sixty yards away, and looking at the tent, and then heard rather
than saw it stamp its foot. Two or three times he put his rifle to his
shoulder and glanced along the barrel, but he could not yet see his
fore sight. Two or three times the deer stepped forward a little way,
and then stopped and again stamped. Evidently the tent, shining white
in the dim light of the morning, puzzled her, and she was trying to
make out what it was. She had never seen anything like this before.
As the light grew, Jack could see that it was a small doe, probably a
yearling, and just the meat they needed. At length he put his gun to
his shoulder again and found that he could see the sights, though not
very clearly, and drawing a coarse sight and aiming low down at the
brisket of the animal, which stood facing him, he pulled the trigger.
The deer sprang in the air, and then turning, ran swiftly toward the
brush and disappeared.

"Get it?" asked Hugh, as Jack moved back on his bed and began to put on
his trousers and shoes.

"I don't know," said Jack, "the light was too dim for me to see much. I
ought to have killed her, but I could hardly see my sights. I wouldn't
be much surprised, though, if we were to find her. She seemed to me to
jump as if she had been hit."

In a very few moments Hugh and Jack were both dressed, and while Hugh
began to kindle the fire, Jack walked off in the direction where the
deer had last been seen. It was now full day, and before he had gone
far the brilliant disk of the sun began to show over the eastern
horizon.

The tracks were plainly seen where the deer had sprung into the air,
and then turning, had run swiftly toward the willows. It was easy to
follow the trail, but there was no blood, and this gave Jack rather a
feeling of chagrin, for he did not like to feel that he had missed. As
he went on the tracks were less deeply marked in the ground, rather
as if--Jack thought--the animal had recovered from its fright. He had
only just begun to think about this, when suddenly he almost fell over
the deer lying in front of him. It had run about a hundred yards. Jack
turned and looked back toward the tent and at that moment Hugh, who had
been putting wood on the fire, turned his head and looked toward his
companion. Jack waved his hat as a sign that he had found the animal,
and then began to prepare it to take to camp. It was a young doe and
quite fat, and Jack felt quite pleased that he had got so good a piece
of meat. It did not take long to prepare it for camp, and as the animal
was small, and the distance short, Jack took it by the ears and easily
dragged it over the smooth grass up to the camp.

"Well," said Hugh, as he stooped over and felt of the carcass, "that's
good. A nice little white-tailed yearling, and quite fat. From now on
we've got to kill bucks or yearlings or dry does, for the old ones that
are nursing their young won't be fit to eat."

"It's queer, Hugh," said Jack, "I didn't find a bit of blood on the
trail. I just followed the tracks, and I was watching them so closely
that I almost fell over the deer at last. The bullet entered the breast
low down and went through the whole length of the animal, and both
where the bullet went in and where it came out, the skin had slipped
to one side so as to cover the hole in the flesh. Of course she bled a
lot, but not a drop of it came out of her body."

"Yes, that happens so every now and then in those shots that go through
an animal lengthwise, and they're especially likely to happen if the
animal was standing when the shot was fired, and then makes a big
effort afterward."

Breakfast was nearly ready, and by the time Jack had washed his hands
Hugh had poured out the coffee and they both sat down.

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "what are we going to do to-day? Shall we
move, or shall we stop here one more night?"

"I think," said Hugh, "that the best thing we can do is to take the
saddle horses and go on up the creek a few miles on this side and
prospect. After we've done that, we can make up our minds what is best
to be done, but it's pretty certain that we will want to go over and
camp two or three nights by that pond that we saw yesterday."

"Yes," said Jack, "I should think that was something that we ought to
do, sure."

It took but a few minutes to skin the deer and hang the carcass up
in one of the cottonwood trees, where it would be safe from any wolf
or coyote that might come about the camp, and then catching up their
riding horses, they saddled them and started up the stream.

For several miles the bottom was wide and usually thickly fringed with
willows. Several times they dismounted, tied their horses, and went
in as far as they could toward the main stream, but twice they were
stopped by water, or mud, or by beaver sloughs that were too wide for
them to cross. Hugh said little, but shook his head from time to time
as he looked over the valley. It was evident that he was dissatisfied.
Jack forebore to ask questions, for he could see that Hugh was occupied
in observing, and was thinking hard. They had gone five or six miles
up the valley, and it was now about noon, when, on rounding a point of
willows, they could see before them quite a large pond.

Hugh drew up his horse and for ten or fifteen minutes sat there
watching, and then drawing back, he rode up behind the willows,
dismounted, and tied his horse. Jack did the same.

"This looks better, son," said Hugh. "We'll go in here afoot as far as
we can and watch this pond and see what we can see. I think there are
beaver here, and probably this is the place we want to camp by."

As quietly as possible they made their way toward the edge of the
water, passing on the way several trails where the beaver had been
dragging brush to the water. The signs showed that this had been done
no longer ago than last night, for on the ground were scattered fresh,
green willow and cottonwood leaves, and in two or three places the
bark had been knocked off willow stems by whatever had been dragged
along, and these wounds were absolutely fresh. Presently they came
to the edge of the willows, and still keeping themselves concealed,
crept up to a little knoll, where they sat down and peered through the
tangle of stems out over the pond. There before them was a long dam
which Jack, with his experience of the day before fresh in his mind,
could see had been recently worked on. Out in the water were a number
of the hay-stack-shaped houses of the beaver, and even while they were
looking, to Jack's astonishment and delight a beaver appeared on one of
them, carrying in his mouth a long, white, peeled stick which he placed
among others on the roof. Jack looked at Hugh, wondering if he had seen
the beaver, too, and Hugh gave a little motion of his head. At two or
three points on the dam animals were at work, beaver, of course, but
too far off to be certainly recognized. Jack wished with all his heart
that he had brought his glasses.

For nearly an hour they sat there, and then crept away as noiselessly
as they had come, apparently unobserved by the animals.

When they had returned to their horses, Jack felt that he might speak.
"Wasn't that a pretty sight, Hugh?" he said. "I don't think I ever saw
anything quite as fine as that. I believe it would be a great deal more
fun just to get up close to these beaver and watch the way they live,
than it will be to trap them and kill them."

"So it would, son," said Hugh, "if we were just coming out for fun; and
I reckon it's pretty nearly as good fun for me to watch them critters
as it is for you. At the same time I feel as if we needed some of that
fur that is swimming around there, and as if we were going to get it.
It'll be quite a lot of work, but it's work that will be fairly well
paid for."

"Yes, Hugh, of course you're right. I want to trap some beaver and get
some fur, and either take it home or sell it; but didn't we have a good
time when we were sitting out there watching those animals? I tell you,
when that beaver crept up on the house there and put that white stick
in it's place, my heart pretty nearly jumped out of my body. I never
expected to see anything like that."

[Illustration: A BEAVER APPEARED WITH A LONG STICK, WHICH HE PLACED
WITH OTHERS ON THE ROOF.--_Page 130._]

"Yes," agreed Hugh, "it was nice. I'll acknowledge that; and we're
likely to see lots more of it. Of course we want to see the pleasant
sights, and then besides that we want to get something to show for
our trip. I think we'll do both. Come on now, let's mount and go on
further. The day is only about half gone and I want to learn all I can."

From here on for quite a long way up the stream, beaver seemed
abundant. The valley had grown much narrower, and instead of being a
wide, grass-grown prairie with more or less morass about it, it was
a narrow valley filled with beaver ponds, most of which seemed to be
occupied.

They took a hasty survey of it and had no more opportunity to watch the
animals at their work and their play. Several times as they were riding
along the edge of the valley they startled white-tailed deer from the
willows, but all those they saw were old does.

"I reckon," said Hugh, "that the fawns are too little as yet to run
with their mothers. The old ones hide them and run away, and then just
as soon as the danger is past they circle back and come close to them
again. Curious thing, isn't it, son, that these little fawns don't give
out any scent?"

"Mighty curious if it's so, Hugh."

"That's what people say," declared Hugh, "and I reckon likely it's
true, because, if you think of it, you'll know that the wolves and
coyotes are hunting all the time for these little fawns, and it's
pretty sure that they don't find many of them. If they did, the deer
wouldn't be half as plenty as they are."

"Then I suppose the white tails hide their young ones just as the elk
and the antelope do," said Jack.

"Yes," said Hugh, "that's just what they do, or for a matter of fact
just the way a buffalo cow hides her calf, or a common cow hides hers.
You see all these animals seem to have that one instinct. When their
young ones are very small and too weak to run fast or far, they hide
them, and the plan works well, too, for I guess it carries most of them
through. That fawn that those two lynxes were eating the other day was
probably either one that they stumbled on by accident, or else perhaps
one that had died from some sickness. They do that sometimes."

The sun was only a couple of hours high when they turned their horses
and, riding out on the prairie, galloped swiftly back to camp. The
straight road and good pace made their return journey seem much shorter
than it had been in the morning.

Supper over, they lounged about the fire, on which Jack had piled so
much wood that it gave a bright and cheerful blaze. Hugh was evidently
thinking over what he had seen during the day and making up his mind
about to-morrow, and Jack, feeling lazy, stretched out on the ground
near the fire, and presently went to sleep.

A little later Hugh called to him and said, "Rise up, son, and let us
talk over what we are going to do. We'd better settle that before we go
to bed."

Jack rubbed his eyes and sat up sleepily, while Hugh got out his
tobacco and filled his pipe, and then sitting cross-legged before the
fire and puffing out huge wreaths of smoke, he said to Jack, "Now,
son, there are plenty of beaver here, and if we have any luck at all
we could load one horse just from this stream. I don't know, though,
whether it's going to pay us to spend weeks of time setting traps and
skinning beaver. I think it's worth while for us to do some trapping
and get some fur, but I doubt if it's worth our while to spend the
whole summer doing it. Suppose to-morrow we move up close to that big
pond that we found to-day and make camp there and then trap until we
get tired of it. When we've had as much as we want of this one place,
we can move on and go somewhere else. It isn't quite as if we were
trying to make money enough trapping to carry us over the winter. You
don't greatly need the money that the fur would bring, and as for me,
I've got my job, and it's no matter of life and death to get this fur.
We're out here mainly for pleasure and for you to learn something about
the country, and the ways of the things that live in it. We are free to
do about as we please. What do you think?"

"Why, Hugh," replied Jack, "that seems to me a good way to look at
it. Let's trap here as long as we want to, and then travel on and go
somewhere else. I want to get up into the high mountains, and I suppose
you do, too. We want to have a little hunting and to see as much of the
country as we can."

"All right, son," said Hugh, "we'll let it go at that. And to-morrow
morning in good season we'll move camp up the creek. I'll be glad to
get these horses onto fresh grass. Of course, they are not working to
amount to anything and don't greatly need the food, but I've sort of
formed the habit of wanting my horses always to have the best there is
going."

"All right," rejoined Jack; "the first thing when we get up to-morrow
I'll bring in the horses and saddle them, and it won't take so very
long to get started."

"No," Hugh assented, "that's one good thing about us, we travel pretty
light and can go fast and far if we have to."

There was a little pause while Hugh knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
got his tobacco and lighted the pipe again. Then Jack said to him,
"Hugh, there's one thing I want to ask you about; how does it come
that these beaver here are so tame and are out swimming around in the
water in the middle of the day? I have always heard that in old times
it was sometimes possible to see beaver out at their work in the early
morning and again in the evening, but that during the day they were
always in their holes. I thought that the beaver was a night animal,
and that of late years, since it had been trapped and hunted so much,
it never came out at all in the daytime."

"That is something, son, that I can't understand at all: why we've seen
these beaver the way we have. I don't think I ever saw beaver acting
just this way, though I've heard of old men, those that were out here
trapping in the early days, say that in those times beaver were about
all day long. They didn't talk as if the beaver were a night animal,
but as if it were going about through the day, just, for example, as
prairie dogs do, or whistlers, or others of these gnawing animals that
we commonly see. I've an idea that it's only since people began to hunt
the beaver that he has took to working nights and sleeping days, but of
course I don't know anything about this; that's just my notion. Anyhow,
from the way these beaver here are acting, I should say that it was
a long time since they had been trapped or disturbed in any way, and
that seems queer, for you see we are not very far from the railroad,
and there are always idle people lying around a place like Laramie,
people that believe they know how to trap, and who, if they knew of a
place like this, would think they could make their everlasting fortune
here. I wonder some of those fellows haven't found the place. Then, on
the other hand, we're not so very far from where the Utes range, and
it would seem to me only natural that some of their young men might
run across a place like this and try to get the fur. Of course, if
they had come they would have made a scatteration of these beaver by
tearing down the dams and getting as many of the animals as they could
out of the houses. But nothing has been disturbed; there's no sign of
white people or Indians, and, what is a great deal better evidence,
the beaver are absolutely tame. We'll get some of them before long, I
reckon."

"I hope so," said Jack, as he rose to his feet and threw another stick
or two on the fire. Then squatting down by it, he said: "Three or four
days ago, Hugh, I asked you how big beaver were, and you told me, and
ever since then I've been trying to think of something that my uncle
told me two or three years ago about an old time sort of beaver that
doesn't exist any more on the earth. I think it was what you were
telling me about the Indians' belief in medicine beavers that made me
think of it. Uncle George told me that out in Ohio there was found a
skeleton, or part of the skeleton, of a great big animal just like a
beaver, but about as big as a black bear. That would mean, I suppose,
weighing three or four hundred pounds, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "about that."

"Well," said Jack, "this beaver lived in those old times, a good way
back, but not nearly as far back as those older times when the coal was
made. It lived about the same time that they used to have mastodons in
this country."

"Hold on," said Hugh, "say that again. What is a mastodon?"

"Why," said Jack, "it's a great big animal, a good deal like an
elephant. You have seen elephants, haven't you?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "once when I was a small boy I saw one. He was a
powerful big animal."

"Well," said Jack, "a mastodon was like an elephant, only bigger, and
he was different in some ways, but I've forgotten how. I think it was
something about his teeth. The mastodon didn't live such a very great
while ago, because I remember Uncle George said that the bones of those
that they have found had not yet turned to stone. Of course all these
fossils that come from the older times have changed into regular stone.
They are just rocks with the shape of bones or shells or whatever it
may be."

"Yes," said Hugh, "I know about that, because I've seen a heap of them.
They're just rocks in the shape of the different things that they used
to be."

"Well," said Jack, "anyhow the main thing is that in that time when
there were mastodons in this country, there was also a big animal like
a beaver, that would weigh several hundred pounds."

"He must have had fine fur," said Hugh, "but I reckon it would have
been powerful hard work setting traps for that fellow. You'd have to
have bear traps to catch him, and it's no joke to set a bear trap. You
say all they know about him is that they found his bones?"

"That's all," said Jack. "Uncle George showed me a picture of a skull
once, and I remember that it was longer than a wolf's skull, and it had
two great big gnawing teeth reaching down from the front of the jaw."

"Powerful strange things there used to be on this earth a long time
ago," said Hugh, in a meditative tone.

"Yes, indeed," answered Jack, "and think how little we, any of us, know
about those things. Even the smartest men, those who have given up all
their time to studying these things, don't seem to know much about
those old times. I know it's awful easy to ask them questions that they
can't answer."

"I suppose a man of that kind doesn't want to say anything unless he's
dead sure it's so," said Hugh. "Likely enough he's made his reputation
by always being right, and he's afraid to make any guesses."

"Maybe that is it," said Jack, "but I remember one time going to New
Haven with my uncle, and we went into the Peabody Museum, and one of
the professors there, a Mr. Marsh, took us around and showed us the
greatest lot of bones you ever saw. He could tell us a great many
things about the skeletons and parts of skeletons that he showed us,
but I know my uncle asked him a great many questions about other
things, and he would just laugh and say he didn't know anything about
it, and nobody else did."

"Well," said Hugh, "it's each man to his trade. I suppose I can hunt
and trap and know something about animals, and these professors work
over their birds and their bugs and their bones. Some of the stories
they tell are pretty hard to believe, and yet I reckon they are all
true."

"Oh, I guess so," said Jack.

The next morning before daylight had fairly broken, Jack was afoot
and on his way out to the horses. They were brought in and tied up to
the willows, their saddles put on and ropes coiled, picket pins got
together, and all the various property of the camp, which so easily
becomes scattered about, was collected before breakfast was ready.

The bear skin, which had now been drying for three or four days, was
taken from the ground and brought into camp. Hugh, when he looked at
it, said that it was in first-class condition and had not been burned
by the sun.

"Save all these pins, son," he said, "wrap them up in a gunny sack;
they may be useful to us later on, and may save us half a day's
whittling."

"Now," he said, "you take hold of one side of this hide and I'll take
hold of the other, and we'll fold it up hair side in and make it small
enough to go on top of one of the packs. It won't frighten the horse so
much, now that it has lost its fresh smell."

They folded the hide as Hugh had said, and it made a small, flat
package of convenient size to go in the load.

After they had eaten their breakfast, Jack took down the tent and
folded it, rolled the beds, and got most of the packs ready. Hugh's
kitchen was the last thing to be prepared, and then after a general
tightening of the saddles, the loads were lashed on the horses' backs
and they set out up the creek. Jack's last duty, and one which he
performed at every camp, was to ride carefully about the fire, and
about where the tent had stood, and look all over the ground, to see
whether anything had been left behind.

It was nearly noon when they reached the new camp ground. A pretty
spot, raised well above the level of the stream bottom, with a big
fringe of willows to the west, which would give shelter from any storm
rushing down the mountains, and a little grove of cottonwoods which
made a pleasant shade and would furnish fuel. Along a ravine which
emptied into the bottom there grew a few box elder trees.

"Well, Hugh, this is a good camp," said Jack.

"First-class," replied Hugh, "all except the water. Suppose you go down
into the willows there and see if you can find a spring. There must be
water right close by here, but I haven't seen any."

In a few minutes Jack returned, reporting an excellent though small
spring right in the edge of the willows close to the camp.

"We ought to dig it out, son, and make it bigger, if we are going to
water the horses there," remarked Hugh.

"All right," said Jack, "I'll do that now."

After the tent had been put up, two of the horses picketed, and dinner
eaten, Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, if you want to go off on a
prospecting tour this afternoon, you better go. I am going to be busy
all the afternoon looking over my traps and making my medicine."

"Your medicine, Hugh," asked Jack, "what is that?"

"My beaver medicine," Hugh answered; "that is the stuff we are going to
use to make the beaver come into the trap."

"Oh, yes," said Jack, "I know; I've heard about that. It's a great
secret how it's made, isn't it, Hugh? I used to ask the trappers up
among the Blackfeet, and they always made some joke about it and never
would tell me what it was."

"Well," answered Hugh, "you'll find all trappers are just like that,
but before we get home I guess you will see me make it, and then if you
use your eyes and nose, perhaps you'll learn how to make it yourself.
But this afternoon," he went on, "I am going to take out my traps
and go over them, see that they work well, and get them ready to set
to-morrow. If you want to go hunting or looking around, or studying
anything, you go ahead and do it, only I'd get back here an hour or two
by sun, so that we can have our supper by daylight."

"All right," said Jack. "I think I'll take my rifle and walk on up the
creek. We don't greatly need any meat, but I might see something that
was worth shooting at."

"Well," said Hugh, "if I were you I wouldn't shoot much down in the
valley. I'd like to keep everything about camp as quiet as possible for
the next two or three days."

"I'll remember it," said Jack, and rising he took up his rifle and
strode off up the stream.

CHAPTER XIII

A LION'S LEAP

A cool breeze was blowing down from the mountains, and although the
sun was warm it was not uncomfortably hot. Here and there little wisps
of smoke drifted from points on the mountainside where some old log
was still smouldering, but the fire as a whole seemed to have been
extinguished by the rain. Away down to the south the mountainsides were
all black, and from the border of the burned country great tongues of
the same dark color here and there stretched out into the green timber
that clothed the unburned mountainside, showing where the onrushing
flames had scorched the tops of the pine trees; but to the north of
this the timber was still brightly green.

Before Jack had gone far, the valley grew narrower and the hills on
either side higher. On his side of the stream the bluffs now drew
closer to the willows, and were occasionally broken down into Bad Land
shapes, where no grass grew and where the clay was deeply guttered by
the rain.

In the ravines, which at short intervals broke through these steeper
bluffs, grew huge old cottonwoods, not very tall, but thick, and with
gnarled, twisted branches. Evidently at some seasons of the year great
quantities of water passed down through these ravines, for their beds
were deeply washed.

In the valley and on the hillsides Jack saw many antelope, but there
was meat enough in camp to last them for a day or two, and it hardly
seemed to him worth while to kill anything. "At least," he thought, "if
I do fire a shot, I will wait until I have started back toward the
camp, so that I can carry the meat with me as I go in."

As he went on he kept watching the willows to his left, thinking that
at any time a white-tail deer might appear among them, and he kept an
equally good lookout on the bluffs and up the ravines to his right,
where there was always a possibility of seeing a black tail or even a
mountain sheep.

He was standing looking up one of these ravines, watching a doe
antelope that had been feeding there, which, having seen him, was
trotting off further up the ravine, when, without the slightest
warning, as the doe was passing under the branches of a huge old
cottonwood that grew on the border of the watercourse, something yellow
sprang out from the branches of the tree, and descending on the doe,
struck her to the ground. Although she was a long way off, Jack could
hear her bawl in fright, and he instantly saw that a panther had been
resting among the branches of this tree, and had sprung at the doe as
she passed by.

The doe and the panther were in plain sight as he stood there, but
dropping to the ground he crept swiftly to a little coulée which led
down to the bottom of the ravine, and running down this, he started up
the ravine as fast as he could. The watercourse was narrow, its sides
steep, and its bottom entirely dry. The big cottonwood from which the
panther had leaped was the first one in the ravine, and by watching its
branches he could tell when it would be necessary for him to begin to
go cautiously in order to creep up and get a shot at the great cat. For
the most part, the bed of the ravine was covered with sand, over which
he could run noiselessly, but every little while he came to a bed of
drift pebbles, and here he felt obliged to go more slowly. Presently
the towering crown of the great cottonwood came in sight again, now
not more than seventy-five yards distant, and Jack began to look for
a place where he could climb up the steep banks of the ravine to get a
shot. In a moment more a little side wash gave him the opportunity that
he sought, and clambering up four or five feet of broken-down clay, he
found himself in a coulée, which furnished an easy way to the level
ground above. Taking advantage of another little side wash that came
in, he presently found himself on the level ground where the cottonwood
stood, and looking through the sage brush, he tried to catch a glimpse
of the panther. For a moment or two he could see nothing of it, but
then something white caught his eye, and raising his head a little
higher, he saw the white breast and belly of the doe, and the panther
stretched out beside her with his teeth apparently fixed in her neck.

The panther's eyes were half closed, almost as if it were asleep, and
it was paying no attention to its surroundings. This time Jack thought
that he could try to make a close shot, and resting his elbow on his
knee, he sighted carefully for the panther's head, and pulled the
trigger. The animal did not move, but when the smoke cleared away and
Jack looked again he saw that the beast's head was turned a little to
one side, and that its cheek was resting on the doe's neck. He felt
pretty confident that his ball had gone where he wished it to, and
taking two or three loose cartridges in his right hand, he rose to his
knees and took a long stare at the panther. Still it did not move, and
when, after a slow approach, he had come close to it, he could see just
over its eye a little red spot, and circling round to the other side,
he saw a larger bleeding hole from which the ball had emerged.

When he pulled the panther away from the doe and turned her over to
look at her, he saw that the cat must have leaped short, for on her
hips were marks of four deep scratches where the sharp claws of one
paw had sunk into the antelope's skin, and then on her left side at
the shoulder were the marks of the other paw. Except for that the doe
was unhurt, save where the panther had bitten her throat. Jack made up
his mind that he would take a part of the doe to camp, as well as the
panther's skin.

It took him some time to skin the cat, and then rolling up the hide,
and cutting off the hams and saddle of the doe, he put both on his
back and went down the ravine to the valley. It seemed to him that the
weather had grown much warmer, but he forgot that he had been first
running and then working hard.

When he reached the valley, he was undecided whether to go back to
camp at once or to keep on a little further up the stream and see if
there was anything more worth seeing, but when he looked at the sun he
saw that there were yet three or four hours before its setting, and he
determined to continue his walk; so he went down to the edge of the
willows and among them hid his meat and his panther hide, and then kept
on slowly up the stream.

A mile or two further on he came to a place where the willows ceased,
and the stream bending toward the side up which he was traveling had
been dammed and spread out in a pond which reached almost across the
valley, and on his side came almost up to the bluffs.

It was not a new dam, for along the borders of the pond grew tall
rushes, almost as high as his head. He entered them to see if he could
get to the water's edge and look out over the pond, but hardly had he
stepped among them when, almost from under his feet, a duck sprang up
and flapped away through the reeds, as if unable to fly. Jack knew,
of course, that he had startled the duck from her nest, and that her
pretense of being wounded was only a ruse to draw him away from her
precious eggs, and looking down on the spot from which she had sprung
he saw something white, and pushing aside the reeds with his hand, saw