HUNTING THE BIG-HORN.
Oscar slept soundly that night, in spite of the roaring of the wind and
the howling of the wolves, and awoke at daylight to find breakfast
waiting for him. A glance out at the door showed him that the storm had
ceased. The weather was clear and cold, and the snow covered the ground
to the depth of six inches.
“Just deep enough for tracking,” Oscar remarked, as he gave his hands
and face a thorough washing in it.
Of course the first thing on the programme was a hunt.
That was what the boy came out there for, and he was anxious to begin
operations at once.
He longed to bring down one of the big-horns he had seen watching him at
his work, and to knock over one of the lordly elk that had scurried away
with such haste when he and Big Thompson kindled their first camp-fire
in the valley.
So very impatient was he that the breakfast the guide had so carefully
prepared did not delay him more than five minutes.
He did not sit down to the table at all, but swallowed his coffee
scalding hot, and walked up and down the cabin, buckling on his
accoutrements with one hand, while he had his venison and cracker in the
other.
The guide was more deliberate in his movements. He was almost too
deliberate, Oscar thought.
After he had fully satisfied his appetite, he put away the dishes,
slowly filled and lighted his pipe; and, not until he had set the cabin
in order did he take his rifle down from the pegs on which it rested,
and sling on his powderhorn and bullet-pouch.
Then a short consultation was held; and, after the guide had repeated
some of the instructions he had given Oscar in regard to deer-hunting,
and described to him the place at which he intended to camp at noon,
they left the cabin, Big Thompson turning his face toward the brook that
flowed through the valley, while Oscar directed his course along the
base of the cliffs.
“Now, perfessor, yer sartin ye aint afeard of nothing?” said the guide,
as they were about to separate.
“Of course not,” answered Oscar promptly. “You must have asked me that
question a dozen times since we planned our hunt yesterday afternoon.”
“Wal, I know it. I ax ye kase it aint every tenderfoot who would care to
go philanderin’ off by himself in a country like this.”
“You suggested it yourself,” said Oscar. “You said that if we hunted
about half a mile apart, we would stand a better chance of scaring up
game than we would if we went together.”
“An’ I say so now.”
“Then we’ll carry out our plan. I shall not be afraid until I see
something to be afraid of. Good-by! If you reach the camping-ground
before I do, don’t forget to give me the signal.”
“He’s a cool one, if he is a tenderfoot,” muttered Big Thompson, as he
shifted his heavy rifle to the other shoulder, and continued on his way
toward the brook. “If I could see him facin’ some kind of a varmint,
like a grizzly or panther, I could tell jist how much pluck he’s got.
I’ll be kinder keerful how I go too fur away frum him, kase he may see
sumthin’ to be afeard of afore he knows it.”
Meanwhile, Oscar was walking slowly along, just outside the bushes and
evergreens that lined the base of the bluffs, looking for a ravine that
would lead him from the valley into the hills.
“Thompson gave me emphatic instructions to keep within hearing of him,”
said the boy to himself; “but I shall do as I please about that. He may
find a deer or two drinking at the brook; but my chances for jumping
game along here are not worth a copper. I am hunter enough to know that;
so I’ll just go up this way and see if I can find one of those sheep.”
As Oscar said this, he turned into a deep gorge that opened into the
valley, and began picking his way carefully over the snow-covered
bowlders toward the hill which had served as a lookout station for the
sentinel big-horn.
All that the young hunter knew of the habits of these animals he had
gained from conversation with his guide.
He had learned that, like the antelope, they always put out sentinels
when they were feeding; that those sentries invariably stationed
themselves on the highest hills in the vicinity of the flock; that their
eyes were keen, and their noses so sharp that they had been known to
detect the presence of the hunter while he was yet more than half a mile
away; that they were to be found on their feeding-grounds only in the
morning or late in the afternoon; that when they had satisfied their
appetites they retreated to the most inaccessible ledges, to which no
enemy could follow them without their knowledge; and that, owing to
their timidity and vigilance, it was almost impossible to bring one of
them to bay, except under the most favorable circumstances.
Oscar thought of all these things as he toiled slowly up the gorge,
stopping every few feet to examine the ground before him, and making use
of every bush and bowlder to cover his advance; and the difficulties he
saw in his way made him all the more determined to succeed.
“Big Thompson doesn’t think much of my abilities as a hunter,” said he
to himself, “and I don’t know how I could surprise him more than by
shooting a big-horn, unless I were to shoot a panther or a grizzly, and
that is something I don’t expect to do. In fact, I have no desire to
attempt it. The wind is in my favor, and that is something upon which I
can congratulate myself.”
For nearly an hour Oscar continued to work his way along the ravine;
and, when he believed that he had arrived at a point opposite the
pinnacle on which he had seen the sentinel big-horn, he turned into the
bushes and began clambering slowly up the cliff.
As it was almost perpendicular, his progress was necessarily slow, but
he reached the top at last; and, cautiously raising his head, looked
over it.
He had no sooner done so than he uttered an exclamation under his
breath, and drew his head quickly back again.
He crouched behind the cliff long enough to cock his gun, and then he
straightened up, at the same time drawing the weapon to his shoulder.
Before him was a level plateau, containing perhaps ten or fifteen acres.
On the right, and in front, it was bounded by the gorge that Oscar had
been following; and on the left was the valley in which the camp was
located.
On the other side rose a perpendicular wall of rock that extended
entirely across the plateau. Near the base of this rock were the objects
that had attracted Oscar’s attention—four gray wolves, which were
feasting on a mountain sheep they had killed for their breakfast. Oscar
knew at once that it was a sheep, for he could see the head and horns.
“What a pity that I didn’t happen along here when they first killed
him!” was the boy’s mental reflection. “He must have been a fine fellow,
judging by the size of those horns. Well, as I didn’t get the sheep,
I’ll knock over a couple of the wolves for our museum; and the horns
I’ll give to Sam Hynes to put up in his mother’s dining-room.”
So saying, Oscar rested his rifle over the top of the bluff; and,
drawing a bead on the largest of the wolves, waited with all the
patience he could command for one of his companions to get behind him,
hoping to kill both of them with one bullet.
The wolves gnawed and snapped at one another over their meal; and,
although they were constantly changing their positions, and the two that
Oscar wished to secure frequently came within range, their motions were
so rapid that he dared not fire at them for fear of missing his mark.
At the report of his gun they would doubtless take to their heels, and
his chances for shooting one on the run were not one in a thousand.
While the boy was waiting for a shot, he was suddenly startled by
hearing a loud snort close at hand; and, turning his head quickly, he
was astonished almost beyond measure to see an immense mountain-sheep
standing on the edge of the plateau.
His gaze was fastened upon the wolves, whose presence did not seem to
cause him the least alarm. It rather seemed to encourage him; for now
and then he lifted one of his forefeet, and stamped it spitefully on the
ground, after the manner of a domestic sheep.
It was the first of these animals of which Oscar had ever obtained so
near a view; and he told himself that in color and shape it resembled a
deer more than it resembled anything else.
It was covered with hair instead of wool, and its color was tawny,
changing to white on the flanks and breast. But it carried the horns of
a sheep, and they were really magnificent.
Where the animal came from so suddenly Oscar did not know, nor did he
stop to ask himself the question. He was there, and the next thing was
to secure him.
Remembering the mountain-sheep’s wary nature, Oscar exercised the utmost
caution in turning the muzzle of his rifle from the wolves toward the
buck.
Fortunately he succeeded in accomplishing this without alarming the
timid animal, which was giving all his attention to the wolves; and,
glancing along the clean, brown barrel, the boy was on the very point of
pressing the trigger when another interruption occurred.
Three or four heads, adorned with horns like the gnarled branches of an
oak, suddenly appeared above the edge of the plateau, and as many more
came close behind them; these were followed by others; and, in less than
a minute, a dozen full-grown bucks were standing in plain view of the
young hunter, and not more than fifty yards away.