OSCAR DISCOVERS SOMETHING.
“I believe you hunters generally make a litter to carry your game home
on, don’t you?” continued Oscar.
“We do sometimes, when thar’s two fellers to tote it,” replied Big
Thompson.
“Well, there are two of us here; but I never could carry one end of a
litter with all those animals piled on it. The distance is too great and
the load would be too heavy.”
“Yes, I reckon seven or eight hundred pounds would be a pretty good lift
for a chap of your inches, an’ yer a mighty well put up sort of a boy,
too. We’ll have to snake ’em thar.”
“That would never do,” returned Oscar, quickly. “It would spoil the
skins to haul the game so far over the snow.”
“They shan’t tech the snow at all. I’ll tell ye what I mean.”
Big Thompson gave the boy his rifle to hold, and, with the hatchet he
always carried in his belt, cut down a small pine tree, which was to be
used as a drag.
With the aid of this drag they succeeded, after infinite trouble, and
two hours’ hard work, in transferring all the game from the plateau to
the mouth of the gorge.
One of the big-horns was then placed on the drag and the guide started
with it for the cabin, leaving Oscar to protect the rest from any hungry
beast which might chance to pass that way.
The guide was obliged to make four trips between the gorge and the camp,
and, as it was no easy work to haul the drag and its heavy burdens
through the snow, two hours more were consumed, so that it was near the
middle of the afternoon before Oscar saw his specimens safely housed.
After full justice had been done to the cutlets, which, under Big
Thompson’s supervision, were cooked to perfection, Oscar set to work
upon one of the sheep, while the guide sat by, smoking his pipe and
watching all his movements with the keenest interest.
At midnight Oscar was tired enough to go to bed. He slept soundly until
eight o’clock the next morning; and then awoke, to find that the fire
had nearly gone out, that the breakfast that had been prepared for him
was cold, and that the guide was missing.
“He’s gone out to set some of his traps,” said Oscar to himself, as he
drew on his boots and went out to get an armful of wood from the pile in
front of the cabin. “He told me last night that that was what he was
going to do to-day. Well, I have three or four hours more of hard work
before me; and, when it is done, I’ll take a stroll down the valley and
see what I can find to shoot at.”
In a very few minutes the fire was burning brightly; and, after he had
washed his hands and face, and brushed his hair in front of a small
mirror that hung on the wall (he never neglected such little things as
these simply because he was a hunter, and a hundred miles away from
everybody except his guide), Oscar placed the coffee-pot and frying-pan
on the coals, and laid the table for his breakfast.
He had brought with him a good many things in the way of supplies that
Big Thompson had never seen in a hunter’s camp before, such as condensed
milk, pressed tea, sugar, self-leavening flour, canned fruits, pickles,
onions, beans, and desiccated potatoes.
It was just as easy, he thought, to live well, even in that remote
region, as it was to keep himself neat in appearance; and he intended to
do both.
Having eaten a hearty breakfast and set things in order in the cabin,
Oscar resumed work upon his specimens; and, by twelve o’clock, the skins
of the sheep, as well as those of the wolves, were packed snugly away in
one corner, surmounted by the horns he intended to present to his
friend, Sam Hynes.
This done, he buckled on his cartridge-belt, thrust a hatchet into it,
and, taking his rifle down from its place over the door, set out for a
hunt by himself.
Before deciding on his course, he stopped to see which way the wind was
blowing. On glancing at the boughs of the evergreens behind the cabin,
he observed that they hung motionless; there did not seem to be a breath
of air stirring; but the boy, knowing that there is always more or less
motion in the atmosphere, took a hunter’s way of finding out which
direction the breeze came from.
This he did by moistening his finger in his mouth and holding it above
his head. The back of his finger was toward the upper end of the valley;
and, as it grew cold almost instantly, Oscar knew that what little wind
there was, came from the mountains. He knew, too, that experienced
hunters, while seeking for game, always travel against the wind; so,
without further hesitation, he shouldered his rifle and started up the
valley.
“The elk we saw on the day we arrived here went in this direction,”
thought he, as he trudged along, keeping just in the edge of the timbers
for concealment; “and who knows but I may be lucky enough to find them
again? If I could get a fair shot at the old buck that carries those
splendid antlers, I should have a prize indeed!”
Oscar worked his way cautiously through the woods, stopping now and then
behind a convenient tree to take a survey of the valley before him, but
not a living thing could he see.
All the game-animals seemed to have taken themselves off to a safer
neighborhood; but that some of them had recently been about there was
made apparent to Oscar before he had gone two miles from the cabin.
All of a sudden, while his thoughts were wandering far away from the
valley, across the snow-covered prairie to the little village of Eaton
and the friends he had left there, he came upon the place where a couple
of deer had passed the preceding night.
He knew there were two of them, a large and a small one, for he could
see the prints made by their bodies in the snow when they lay down to
sleep.
He was satisfied, also, that they had left their beds that morning, for
the appearance of the tracks that led to and from the thicket in which
they had passed the night, told him so.
It had thawed just enough the day before to melt the top of the snow,
and during the night it had frozen hard enough to form a thick crust
over it.
The bottom of the tracks that led into the thicket was covered with this
crust, while in those that led out of it the snow was soft to the touch.
Oscar was hunter enough to settle this matter, but it needed the skill
of a more experienced person to determine how long the deer had been
gone, and whether or not it would be worth while to pursue them.
“These tracks were not made by elk, because they are too small,” thought
the boy, stooping down and looking through the trees on all sides of
him, although he knew perfectly well that the animals that made the
tracks were a long way from there at that moment. “They couldn’t have
been made by common deer, either, for they’re too deep. There must have
been heavy bodies on top of those little feet to sink them to such a
depth in the snow. I wonder if they could have been made by black-tails?
I wish Thompson was here.”
But Big Thompson was not there, and consequently if there was anything
done toward securing the deer, whatever their name might be, Oscar must
do it alone and unaided.
He did not expect to be successful in his efforts, but that did not
deter him from taking up the trail at once.
Breaking into a rapid trot, which he had been known to sustain for three
or four miles without the least inconvenience, he followed the tracks
out of the timber and across the valley toward the brook.
When he reached the stream he found that the deer had spent considerable
time there, browsing among the willows, for a good many branches were
broken down, twigs and leaves were scattered about over the snow, and
the two trails ran across each other in every direction; but, by
devoting himself entirely to the tracks made by the larger animal, the
young hunter succeeded in following him through all his devious
windings, and he finally trailed him out of the willows and back across
the valley to the timber that grew at the foot of the hills.
Here he stopped, discouraged.
“It’s no use,” said he, as he looked about for a fallen log on which he
could sit down and rest for a few minutes. “I have followed this trail
for two hours and a half,” he added, consulting his watch, “and now I
must give it up. They were frightened at something as they passed along
here, and began to run. Their tracks show that very plainly, and
Thompson says that if a black-tail once makes up his mind that it is
necessary for him to show his speed, he will keep it up until——Hello!
what’s that?”
While Oscar was looking around for a seat, he discovered something he
was not looking for, and that was another trail, that led diagonally
across the valley from the willows until it struck the trail of the
deer, a few yards from the spot on which he stood, and then it turned
and followed in the direction in which the game had fled.
Oscar ran up to this trail and examined it with no little interest. It
was made by a man—a big man, too, judging by the size of his feet—and he
wore moccasins.
The distance between his tracks showed that he had broken into a run the
moment he struck the trail, and this made it evident that he had decided
to pursue the deer.
“Aha!” said Oscar, shouldering his rifle, and once more setting off at
his best pace, “Thompson has the start of me this time. But I can’t
imagine how he comes to be here, for I understood him to say that he was
going _down_ the valley to the place where we saw that otter-slide. I’ll
not go back to camp until I find him.”
Oscar now had an opportunity to make some estimate of the speed his
guide could put forth when occasion rendered it necessary. He must be
set on springs that recoiled sharply whenever his feet touched the
ground, Oscar thought, for his tracks were so far apart that the boy
could scarcely step into them.
Furthermore, he kept up the same pace without intermission for two long,
weary miles; and then Oscar began to realize that Big Thompson could run
long as well as rapidly.
The boy was nearly out of breath by this time; and, after a short burst
of speed, made with the hope of coming within sight of his guide, he
settled down into a walk.
As he moved slowly along, some things Big Thompson had told him in
regard to mule-deer came into his mind.
The guide had informed him that in vigilance this animal was fully equal
to the mountain sheep, and that in cunning he could give a fox points
and beat him.
One of the favorite tricks of an experienced old buck was this: when he
became aware that he was pursued, he would run like the wind until he
was certain that he had gained a good start of his enemy, then take a
short circle to the right or left of his trail, run back a mile or two
parallel with and a short distance from it, and finally stop on some
hill, from whose summit he could see the country over which he had just
passed without being seen himself. When he discovered the hunter
advancing along the trail below him, he would take to his heels again,
only to repeat the trick a few minutes later.
It was the recollection of this piece of information that caused Oscar
to turn his head and look toward a ridge on his right hand, that
terminated in a bluff, about fifty feet in height.
As he did so, his eyes opened to their widest extent, and his hands
trembled as he took his gun from his shoulder, and laid it in the hollow
of his arm.