BIG THOMPSON FOLLOWS A TRAIL.
Both the hunters had work to do that night; and, as soon as supper had
been eaten, they set about it; Oscar devoting himself to the deer, while
Big Thompson removed and stretched the skins of the otter and mink he
had shot during the day.
The boy was so much interested in what his guide was doing that he made
very little progress with his own task.
Big Thompson, having spent many a year in the woods before he became a
government scout, was an expert in all that pertained to the trapping
and preserving of skins, and he handled his knife with a dexterity that
excited Oscar’s admiration and envy.
His work being done at the end of an hour, he lighted his pipe and
watched the boy until he grew sleepy, and then he bade him good-night
and sought his blanket.
Nothing more was said about the unknown hunter, and Oscar never thought
of him again until the next morning, when he awoke to find that the
guide, after preparing breakfast for his employer, had taken his rifle
and set off by himself.
“He has gone out to see who my rival was,” thought Oscar, as he threw
off the blankets and drew on his boots. “I hope he will find him and
bring him here to live with us. There is room enough in the cabin for
three, and there is game enough in the valley to keep us all busy. If he
stays off there by himself, I am afraid he will shoot that big elk, and
that would be a disappointment to me. After I have eaten breakfast, I’ll
take a stroll down the brook and see if I can find some of Thompson’s
traps. When I see how they are set, I’ll put out some for myself. I
might just as well earn a few extra dollars while I am here as not. I
have spent a good deal of the committee’s money that I had no business
to spend, and every cent of it must be replaced.”
Having disposed of a hearty breakfast—it was astonishing what an
appetite the cold, bracing air from the mountains gave him—Oscar
shouldered his rifle and left the cabin.
He was gone all day; and when he came back, just before dark, he carried
over his shoulder a fine bunch of mink and otter, which he had found in
the guide’s traps and deadfalls.
He had taken particular notice of the nature of the localities in which
these traps and deadfalls were set, and thought he had learned enough to
warrant him in beginning the business of trapping on his own
responsibility.
Big Thompson had already returned, and supper was nearly ready.
“That’s what I have done to-day,” said Oscar, as he entered the cabin
and exhibited his bunch of game. “Now, what have you done?”
“I’ve found out that we’ve got the country to our own two selves ag’in,
like we’d oughter have,” answered Big Thompson. “That feller has dug
out.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Oscar. “I was in hopes you would find him
and bring him back with you.”
“I might have fetched him here if I’d found him, an’ then ag’in I
mightn’t. I don’t reckon ye’d make friends with every feller ye’d meet
in the settlements, would ye? Wal, ’taint safe to do so out yere in the
hills, nuther. Most likely he heared ye yellin’ an’ shootin’ yesterday,
an’ has gone off to find more elbow-room.”
“I should think he ought to have heard me, if he was anywhere within a
mile of the valley,” said Oscar, with a smile. “I tell you I awoke the
echoes. But it seems to me that you fellows want a good deal of
elbow-room. I wouldn’t care if there were a dozen other hunters here. Do
you know who he was?”
“I didn’t see him,” was the answer.
“But do you know who he was?” repeated Oscar, who saw something in his
guide’s manner which led him to the belief that he wasn’t telling all he
knew.
“Look a-yere, perfessor! Do ye s’pose I kin tell a man’s name by seein’
the size of his hoofs in the snow?” demanded Big Thompson. “No, I can’t.
My ole pop, when he larnt me trailin’, never told me how to do that.”
Oscar was entirely satisfied with, the reply. He little imagined that
the guide, although he uttered nothing but the truth when he affirmed
that he had not seen the man, could, nevertheless, tell all about him.
When Big Thompson left the cabin, at the first peep of day, he bent his
steps toward the bluff on which Oscar had killed the mule-deer; and,
after an hour’s rapid walking, found his trail, as well as that of the
unknown hunter.
This he took up at once, and followed through all its numerous windings
among the hills and gorges, until at last he came to the spot where the
tracks, which had thus far been a good distance apart, were made in
pairs.
“This is whar he stopped when he heared the perfessor’s gun,” said the
guide to himself. “Then he went on a few steps an’ stopped; then a
leetle further, an’ stopped ag’in, an’ that’s the way the tracks were
made so clost together. Finally, he branched off this yere way, t’wards
the bluff, to see who it was a-shootin’ down thar in the valley.”
Big Thompson also “branched off” at this point, following the trail to
the edge of the timber; and, by taking his stand behind the same cluster
of bushes that had served the unknown hunter for a concealment, he could
see the spot on which Oscar stood while he was examining his prize.
Taking up the trail again, he pursued it at a swifter pace, his
knowledge of woodcraft enabling him to pick out every tree and bowlder
behind which the hunter had stopped to survey the ground before him;
and, after another hour’s rapid travelling, came within sight of a
smouldering camp-fire.
He ran up to it at once; and, dropping the butt of his rifle to the
ground, halted to take a survey of its surroundings.
The guide had already told himself who Oscar’s rival was; and, if there
were any lingering doubts in his mind as to his identity, they were now
all dispelled.
The hastily constructed shelter, under which the snow was almost as deep
as it was in the woods, the carcasses of the wolves that were scattered
about, and the whole untidy and neglected appearance of the camp, fully
satisfied him that he had made no mistake.
A plain trail led away from the camp, and this had been made by two
persons (one of whom wore boots) and an unshod pony.
The owners of the camp had eaten an early breakfast, and set out to find
less populous hunting grounds.
The guide followed their trail until he had made sure of their
direction, which he knew to be another valley among the hills a few
miles away, and then he turned about and retraced his steps.
“I understand sunthin’ now that I didn’t quite see into afore,” thought
he. “Lish knowed that me an’ the perfessor would be sartin to strike fur
this valley, and that’s why he put that thar writin’ on to Ike Barker’s
door. He reckoned that if Ike tuk back his muel, as a’most any other
feller would ’a’done, that would knock us in the head, an’ him an’ his
pardner would have the country to themselves. But that thar leetle game
didn’t work, did it, Lish? I knowed it was yerself the minute I seed yer
trail a-dodgin’ ahind all them trees an’ rocks. Ye knowed the perfessor
was a-hollerin’ fur me, an’ ye didn’t want to see me, did ye? No; I
reckon ye didn’t—kase why, when we set eyes on to each other, we’ll pull
ha’r, me an’ you will.”
The guide did not explain all this to his employer, because he knew, as
well as if Oscar himself had told him so, that there was something
between him and Lish the Wolfer, or between him and his partner, whoever
he might be.
When Oscar read the note the ranchman found fastened to his door, he was
nearly overwhelmed with excitement, or something else, and the guide had
noticed it. So had Ike Barker, and the two had discussed the matter
after the boy fell asleep in his bunk; but, of course, without arriving
at any solution of the mystery.
It was plain enough to Big Thompson that his young employer knew more
about one or the other of these two worthies than he cared to reveal;
but he had never said anything to him about it, for he knew that it was
no concern of his.
If Oscar were in need of his assistance, and chose to take him into his
confidence, he would give him all the help he could. Until then he would
keep his mouth closed.
This was the way Big Thompson looked at the matter, and the conclusions
at which he arrived showed that he was as expert at following out a
course of reasoning as he was at following a trail.
During the next three weeks our hunters employed their time in much the
same way that they had employed it during the three days the incidents
of which we have so minutely described. They had come out there to hunt
and trap; and they went about their business as regularly as a carpenter
or a book-keeper goes about his daily work.
Oscar passed one day in stalking some of the numerous herds of elk that
roamed in the upper end of the valley, and the next in visiting traps he
had set along the banks of the brook.
Good luck attended all his efforts except in two, or, we may say, three
instances. He never went out after the elk that he did not succeed in
bringing down one; and, whenever he made the round of his traps, he
always brought to the cabin at least half a dozen, and sometimes more,
valuable fur-bearing animals.
He had secured another mule-deer—a doe—which was a fit companion for the
buck he had killed; he had prepared for mounting several fine specimens
of the beaver, otter, mink, and marten tribes; he had knocked over two
or three gray foxes, and a common wolf which he found feasting on a deer
he had slain; he had bagged some representatives of all the game-birds
with which the woods were inhabited; and the pile of furs he intended to
sell, and which grew larger every day, satisfied him that he could
refund every dollar of the committee’s money that he had advanced to
assist Leon Parker and his brother Tom, and have a handsome surplus left
to put into his own pocket.
These things made his heart light and his sleep sound; but he became
nervous and impatient when he reflected that, with all his careful
stalking, he had not been able to get a shot at that big elk with the
splendid antlers; that he could not obtain so much as a glimpse of the
thieving wolverine which was making a business of robbing his traps, or
of the panther which serenaded him and his companion nearly every night.
The guide, who had heard so much about that big elk that he became as
anxious to secure him as Oscar was, advised the boy to run him down on
horseback; and at last Oscar consented to try it.
Then he found that he had missed a good deal of sport during the time he
had devoted to still-hunting.
An elk, when he is disturbed by a hunter, makes off at a trot which is
the very poetry of easy and vigorous motion.
So rapid is his pace, and so long-winded is he, that the hunter who
would overtake him must be mounted on a fleet and enduring horse; and,
furthermore, he must push him hard enough at the start to make him
“break his trot”—that is, compel him to change his gait to a gallop.
Although he can trot twenty miles without showing any signs of fatigue,
going up the side of a mountain, or through a dense forest, where the
way is obstructed by rocks and fallen trees, with as much ease,
apparently, as he would pass over an open prairie, a short gallop—even
on the smoothest ground—exhausts him; and then the hunter can ride close
enough to him to use his rifle or revolver.
Oscar knew all this, for his guide had more than once explained it to
him.
Hunting on horseback was easier than hunting on foot; and, after his
first day in the saddle, Oscar never went elk-stalking again.
He lived on horseback during the daytime, for he always rode the guide’s
pony; the guide himself rode the mule.
This much-abused animal, although he was the very personification of
laziness and obstinacy when hitched to the wagon, was all life and
animation when he had a rider on his back.
He proved to be very light of foot; and, on more than one occasion,
tested the speed of the pony to the utmost.
He was very knowing, too, and it was not many days before Oscar found it
out. If it had not been for that same mule this expedition would have
ended in failure, in spite of the success that had thus far attended
them.
He did something that raised him to a high place in the boy’s
estimation; and anybody who struck that mule a blow after that, in his
presence, would have been very likely to get himself into trouble.