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 213scurried 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 214left 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.”
215“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 216gorge 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 t............