CHAPTER XXVI.

CLOSE QUARTERS WITH A BEAR.

It was not long after this that the camp moved eastward, and stopped near the west end of the little group of mountains which rise out of the rolling prairie, and which, Hugh told Jack, were known to to the Indians as Bear's Hand. The summer was ended now and the nights were cool. From the little prairie lakes and the infrequent streams, the travellers often started flocks of ducks, and at night and in the early morning, the fine thin music caused by the swiftly beating wings of migrating water fowl, reached their ears. Once or twice, Hugh had said to Jack, "Well, son, before long, we've got to be jogging. I reckon the best way for you to get home, and maybe for me too, is to take a boat down the Missouri River, if we can get one, until we strike a railroad, and then you can go East and I'll go West."

"But, Hugh, what can we do with the horses? I don't want to leave Pawnee up here in the Indian camp, nor the new horse, and we can't take them with us on the boat, can we?"

"Well, I don't know," said Hugh, "we'll have to find out about that. I reckon, unless they're pretty heavy loaded, they can find room for half a dozen animals, and the way things look now, we've got money enough to pay their passage. Anyhow, it's a different thing travelling over the prairie now, from what it was when we came up here. There's more danger, and I've been thinking we ought to cross over to Helena and go south from there through the mountains, and try to keep in the settlements all the way. I heard tell last winter, that they were building a railroad from Salt Lake City up north to Helena, or somewhere near there, and if we could strike that, it would save us a heap of time. Anyway, I don't intend to go South over the prairie, the way we came; that country, now, is likely full of Indians and we might get jumped 'most any time. We'll have to wait till we get to Benton, to find out how things are, and I reckon, pretty quick, we've got to pack up and go in there. I think the camp is likely to move up on the Marias before long, and I'd rather stay with them than ride off alone with you."

Since they had found it, their gold had caused Hugh and Jack much anxiety. The sack which contained it, though apparently full of flour was very much heavier than any of the other sacks of flour, and the difference in weight would have caused any one who handled it, to wonder what it contained. They were careful, therefore, always to pack their own horses, and to leave an open sack of flour among their things, in order that, if John Monroe's wife wished to use any, she would go to that, rather than open a fresh sack. So far, no one had any suspicion of the existence of the gold in the camp, and Hugh was anxious that no one should know of it, because there were several white men living with the Indians, about whom he knew very little.

It was now September. Jack had been in the camp more than two months, and besides the old men that he had come to know, he had also made the acquaintance of a number of young fellows of about his own age. From Joe and Hugh, he had learned a few words of Piegan, so that, often, he could understand what people were talking about, and sometimes mustered up courage to speak a few words himself.

One day, not long after his conversation with Hugh about returning home, the news was called out through the camp, that in three days the village would move over to Willow Rounds, on the Marias River, and would stay there a long time. When he heard this, Hugh told Jack that he thought it best, that from there, they should go into Benton and try to go down the river.

That evening Joe came to the lodge and proposed that the next day they should go up into the Bear Paw Mountains, to hunt deer. "Three others are going," he said, "Bull Calf, The Mink and Handsome Face. We ought to go early and I think we can kill some deer."

"All right, Joe," said Jack, "I'll go, and be ready to start any time you say."

"Well, then," said Joe, "let's go by the time the sun rises."

Bright and early next morning, the party started and rode up the mountain. It was not very long before they reached the pine timber, and soon after, they separated into two parties, Bull Calf and The Mink going off on the south side of the hills, while Jack and Joe and Handsome Face kept up on the western slope.

After riding through the timber for quite a long time, they came to some little parks, quite surrounded by timber, with pretty little streams flowing through them, making, as Jack thought, the best possible feeding grounds for deer. After they had passed through several of these without seeing any game, but finding plenty of tracks and old sign, Joe, who was a little ahead, stopped his horse, raised his hand as a sign for the others to wait, and slipped off on foot through the trees. In a very few moments, he had returned, and signing them to dismount and follow him, he led the way through the silent timber. All the boys wore moccasins, and treading with hunter's care, went along like so many ghosts. No twig snapped under their feet, nor did they allow the branches or bushes to scrape against their legs. After a few moments quick walk, Joe turned, and making a sign for caution, dropped to his knees and crept through the low bushes to the edge of a little park. There, as they peered through the leaves, they saw a pretty sight. Three yearling deer were feeding slowly toward them, and were now not more than fifty yards away. They acted as if they had finished their breakfast, and did not seem hungry, but rather as if they were looking for a place to lie down. They would walk along for a few steps, and then one stopping, would nibble at the grass, while the others kept on, and then, perhaps one of these would stop and be passed by the other two. In this careless fashion, they came up to within twenty-five or thirty yards of where the boys knelt, and then one of them suddenly folded his long, slender legs under him and lay down. The others stood by him, one broadside to the watchers, the other head on. Joe signed to Handsome Face, and then the two boys with arrows on the string, rose to their knees, and shot together. Each of the two deer sprang high in the air, and coming down, looked about with raised head and alert ears. The deer that was lying down, stretched his head up high and looked at them, and then about it, but did not spring to its feet. The boys could see in each of the two standing deer, the arrows buried nearly to the feathers. In a moment, the deer at which Handsome Face had shot, fell on the ground, and Joe's deer immediately afterward lay down.

Jack whispered to Joe, "Shall I kill the other?"

"Yes," said Joe, "kill him, sure." Jack took steady aim at the slender neck showing above the grass, and fired, and the deer's head disappeared.

"Well," said Jack, as the boys rose to their feet, and walked out toward the animals, "that seems to me like butchering. Of course we can use the meat, and we need the hides, but I don't think there's much fun in killing game that's as tame as that."

"Pooh," said Joe, "if they'd heard us, or smelt us, you wouldn't think they were tame; they'd have run off mighty fast, and we fellows that have arrows wouldn't have got a shot at them at all."

While Joe and Jack were butchering, Handsome Face went off into the timber, and soon returned with their horses. The deer were loaded on the animals, and they started to return to camp.

After they had begun to descend the mountain, they passed into a long, sloping valley, and here, as they were riding along, Jack discovered that the ground was covered with low huckleberry bushes, abundantly loaded with fruit. A halt was called, and the boys dismounted, and for half an hour were busily engaged picking and eating the delicious berries. While they were doing this, the sky clouded over and it began to rain a little. They mounted again and kept on down the hill, and presently, riding up onto a long-hog back, stopped there to look off to the southward and see whether they could discover their companions. To the south of this ridge was another valley, similar to the one that they had been going down. By this time the rain had stopped, but the sky was still overcast. The boys lay there on the ground, talking and waiting; suddenly Handsome Face stretched out his hand and touching Jack's arm, said, "_Aamo, Aamo, Kyiyu_,"--look, look, bears. The boys turned their heads in the direction that he was looking, and saw, far off in the valley to the south of them, three bears that had just come in sight from behind a little ridge. One was large and two small, and they were walking about in an aimless way that Jack did not understand.

"What are they?" he asked.

"Bears," said Joe; "old one and two cubs, pickin' berries." Jack realised now, that the bears as they walked here and there, and stuck out their noses, were gathering huckleberries, just as he had been doing a little while before.

"How'll we get them, Joe?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Joe. "Got to wait." Then he spoke some words to Handsome face, who answered him, and Joe went on speaking to Jack: "Handsome Face says, wait a little while and they'll go behind a hill and then we can get on our horses and ride down there and run them."

The boys lay there, a good deal excited, not daring to move, and fearing constantly that the old bear would see the horses and run away. But if she saw them, she must have thought they were buffalo, for she paid no heed to them, but went on with the young ones, picking berries.

At length, both the smaller bears passed out of sight, and then a little later, the old one. The boys crept on all fours to their horses, untied the deer and threw them to the ground. Jack tightened his saddle girths, and all three mounting passed down the hill towards the bears.

As they descended into the valley, the ridges, which from the height had seemed so low, began to appear higher, and to assume the proportions of quite respectable hills. Jack thought that he had marked the place where the bears disappeared, with some care, but before long, made up his mind that he had quite lost it. Joe and Handsome Face, however, rode steadily forward, as if they knew just where the place was, as of course they