CHAPTER XXII

A LOAD OF BLACKTAIL

"Wake up, son, it's getting toward morning, and I want to get started. _Levez_, as the Frenchmen say up north."

Jack opened his eyes very slowly, and pushed the blankets down from his head and saw the bright light of the fire and Hugh moving about it; but the stars still shone brightly from the black sky above, and there was nothing to show that it was not the middle of the night.

"Is it time to get up, Hugh?" Jack asked; "I'm awful sleepy."

"Yes, you've got to get up if you're going hunting with me. If you'd rather, you can lie in your blankets till the sun gets up, but you can't hunt if you do that," was the reply.

Jack pushed down the blankets, but the air was cold, and he hated to get up.

"Put on your shoes," said Hugh, "and come over and dress here by the fire where it's warm. The nights are getting mighty cool now, and I expect you feel it."

"Isn't it cold, though," said Jack, as he drew on his shoes, and with his clothes in his arms ran over to the fire. "This is nice and warm, isn't it?"

"Well, you've got to hurry up now and dress; breakfast is near ready."

Jack saw that meat was sputtering in the frying pan, and that the coffee-pot was standing by the fire, and hurried into his clothes.

"Now," said Hugh, "I expect you want to wash your face. Hold your hands and I'll pour." He dipped a cup into the bucket of water, and, while Jack held his hands together, poured a tiny stream into them, while the boy washed his hands and face.

"Well," said Jack, "that's a new kind of a wash basin to me."

"Is it?" said Hugh. "Well, it saves you washing in the dark down by the spring. You may as well go down there though and get a bucket of fresh water, and we'll heat that while we're eating, so that we can wash up the dishes before we start."

Jack did as he was bade, and by the time he had returned with the water, Hugh had taken the food off the fire, and they began their breakfast. After the meal was over Jack went out and brought in the saddle horses, while Hugh was washing up the dishes, and after saddling his own, rolled up his bed and was ready to start. A few moments later, Hugh was in the saddle, and they rode off over the prairie, nearly in the direction that they had gone the night before, but keeping away from the Hole, so as to go around the heads of all the ravines.

"I wanted to get out early," said Hugh, "so's to go over here a couple of miles and get up on top of a high hill by sunrise. From there we can see a long distance, and if there's any deer feeding, we can see them and figure how to get up to them."

It was still dark, but now in the east there was a streak of pale light along the horizon, and the stars above it were growing dim. They galloped briskly along over the dark prairie, now and then hearing a rush of feet and the stamping and blowing of antelope which they had started. Before they reached the hill of which Hugh had spoken the dawn was fairly upon them, and the eastern sky was red. They left their horses in a little hollow, and on foot climbed to the top of the hill, but it was not yet light enough for them to see very much. Before long, however, the limb of the sun appeared over the eastern horizon, and at once the air seemed to clear, and they could see a long distance.

"Oh, look at that, Hugh," said Jack, pointing north-west, "there's a big animal out there, and a little one near it. What are they? Why I believe that's an elk."

Hugh looked in the direction to which Jack pointed, and said: "Yes, that's an elk all right, and a calf with her; we don't want anything of her. I don't see exactly what she's doing down here on the prairie with that little calf; she ought to be up in the hills. There's four antelope right close, almost within gunshot; but we don't want antelope either. What we came after is deer; and there they are," he continued, pointing toward the Hole, where, in a depression at the head of a ravine, three dark coloured animals were feeding. They were a long way off, and Jack could not tell whether they had horns or not; in fact, he would not have known what they were, but he saw that they were not elk nor antelope; their colour told him so much. They could not be wolves, for they stood too high on their legs, and had no tails that he could see; so it seemed certain that they must be deer, or some other animal that he had not seen.

"What had we better do, Hugh?" he said; "do you think we can get up to them?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "there won't be no trouble about that, but what I'd like to know now is, which way this wind is going to blow. The easiest way to get at them is to go around north of them. I think that ridge would bring us within shot, but if the wind starts up to blow from the west or north or north-west, they'd sure smell us, and we wouldn't get no shot. I'd rather set here a spell and see what the wind is goin' to do. They'll feed for two hours, maybe three, yet before they lie down. Let's just keep our eye on 'em and see how they act."

Hugh filled his pipe and smoked, and waited for the wind. For some time this did not come, and the smoke from his pipe went straight upward. Presently, however, a gentle air from the north-west carried away a big puff of smoke, and then it was calm once more. But soon the breeze began to blow very gently from the north-west, and Hugh, as he finished his pipe and knocked the ashes out from it, said:

"Well, I thought that was likely the way it would act. Now, we've got to go round them deer and try to get up on them from toward the Hole."

They mounted and rode briskly back the way they had come, for some little distance, and then, turning east, toward the rim of the Hole, went more slowly. When they reached the edge of the prairie, from which they could look down on the broken bad lands, where they had been the evening before, they followed the rim north, keeping a sharp look-out ahead for any possible game that might start there, and also watching closely the ravines which ran down into the Hole.

At length Hugh said: "'Pears to me that we ought to be pretty close to where them deer is. Let's go slow and careful now, and look the ground over."

The next two ridges were passed very cautiously, but on reaching the summit of the third, Hugh dropped his head and said, "There they are; we're too far down. Let's take our horses back to the next ravine, and come up here and watch the deer. They'll likely work this way before very long."

After they had left their horses, Hugh took Jack up to the crest of the hill and pointed out the deer to him. They were feeding on a hillside, a quarter of a mile away, but their heads were pointed toward the Hole, and Hugh felt sure that with a little patience they would get a shot. They sat there waiting, for more than an hour, while the deer fed about, almost in the same place. At last the biggest of them raised his head and took a long look down the ravine, and then one to either side; then he started, walking slowly toward the Hole. The other two did not seem to pay any attention to him, but after the leader had gone fifty or seventy-five yards, one of the others stopped feeding and trotted after him, and these two walked along together, directly toward the hunters. The third deer remained where he was; he had evidently found something that he greatly liked and did not intend to leave it; but at last, finding that he was being deserted, he too raised his head and trotted after the others. He had not come up with them when they passed within seventy-five yards of the hunters, and Hugh said:

"Raise up now and kill the big one. I'll stop him, and as soon as he stops, you shoot."

Jack slowly raised himself, and resting his left elbow on his knee, aimed at the leading buck. The other deer was walking by the big buck's side.

As Jack brought his rifle to his shoulder, Hugh bleated, in imitation of a fawn, and both deer stopped and turned their heads toward him.

"Now," said Hugh. And as Jack's rifle sounded, both deer fell to the ground. Hugh said, "Slip another cartridge in quick; that other fellow may get up and run off;" and they started down toward the fallen animals. The third deer turned, bounded gracefully up the hill, paused for a moment on its crest to look, and then disappeared.

"But Hugh," said Jack, as he hurried down the hill, "what made the other deer fall; did I hit both? I couldn't have done that for I only aimed at one."

"Well, son," said Hugh, "it looks to me as if your ball went through the big deer and killed the little one too; but we'll soon know."

In a moment they stood by the deer, and Hugh, seizing the smaller one by one of its horns, thrust his knife into its chest.

"Well," said he, "we've got him anyhow." Then he bled the other deer, and then they looked for the bullet holes.

It was as Hugh had said, Jack had not remembered what Hugh had told him the night before about aiming low when he was shooting downhill, and had hit the big buck a little higher up than he had intended, but low enough to kill him. The ball had passed between the ribs, out on the other side, and had passed through the heart of the further deer.

"That's a pretty lucky shot," said Hugh; "you might hunt a good many years and not do that over again. You've beaten me all hollow this trip, and have killed three times as many deer as I have. I expect you're what I call a lucky hunter, and if you only keep on trying hard, and don't get to feeling too big about your good luck, you'll do well right along."

"I'm surely going to try hard, Hugh. I don't think I have done anything very bad since that first day when I tried to hunt antelope alone. I think I learned a heap that day, and I have been glad a good many times since that I didn't kill those first antelope."

"That's right," said Hugh; "I believe that was an awful good lesson for you, and I hope you'll always remember it. I ain't a mite uneasy but what you'll always do well in your hunting, for you're mighty cool headed. I have hunted with a heap of men that couldn't stand it to see game. Seems like whenever they saw an animal standing near 'em, they just got crazy right off. Why, I have seen men that would tremble and shake like they had the ague, if they had a chance like you had just now. Well," he went on, "I believe we might as well butcher, and then start back and pack up our camp. We'll put one deer on one of the pack horses and then bring the whole outfit over here and pack the other three deer on the other horse. We've got all the meat we want, and we can start now and get back to the ranch by night. I did expect to be gone three or four days but we've had such terrible fine luck that we've got all the meat we need, and it's no use stopping. If we do we're likely to kill something more, and we haven't got no way to pack it."

The work of butchering the deer did not take long; they dragged the carcasses a little way up the hill, turned them over to drain, and left them lying on the prairie. Twenty minutes' ride brought them to the camp, where the pack horses were soon saddled. The beds and the mess outfit were put on one of them, and here Hugh gave Jack his first lesson in packing, showing him how the bundles were put on in the swing ropes, and then how the diamond hitch was thrown. After half a dozen trials, Jack thought he understood how the rope should go, and which ones the packer on either side should pull.

"That's enough for one lesson," said Hugh; "now, before we fasten this load on with the last rope, we'll throw one of them deer carcasses on top, and put the lash rope over it." This was done, and Jack for the first time helped to pack a horse, working on the off side.

"You're pretty small," Hugh said, "to pack yet a while. A fellow's got to be tall enough to reach up, so that he can put up a bundle on top of the pack, and so that he can get a good pull on the ropes, forward and backward. Your legs are a little mite short for that part of the work yet. After this, when you and me go out, if you're going to help pack, we'll have to pick short-legged pack ponies."

"Well," said Jack, "I suppose my legs will get longer after a while."

"You bet," said Hugh, "they'll be all right after a little while, and it ain't needful that you should do much packing yet, but it's mighty handy to know how to do it."

The other deer was put on the second pack horse, and roughly lashed in place, and when they reached the two animals killed that morning, one deer was hung on either side of the saddle, while the third was put on top. Jack helped to pack this load too, and did his work better because the horse was standing on a side hill, which added six or eight inches to the boy's apparent height.

"Now," said Hugh, as they were ready to start, "we don't need to haul these animals behind us all day long; we'll just tie up their ropes and drive them; they'll travel good going home."

Hugh coiled up the rope of each horse and made it fast to the lash rope on top of the pack. Then, mounting, they started the pack animals across the prairie in the direction of the ranch. When they had gone two or three miles they crossed a ravine, from the side of which bubbled a clear, cold spring, and here they stopped and took a long, refreshing drink. At the edge of the water were some tracks in the wet earth, which to Jack looked like the tracks of a small dog. He asked Hugh what they were, and Hugh told him they were the tracks of coyote puppies.

"They've only just left here," said Hugh; "likely they heard us coming and skipped out."

They had hardly come up on to the prairie from this ravine when they saw three half-grown coyote puppies shambling along only a short distance in front of them. The puppies saw the men at once, and galloped off, with drooping tails, and heads turned back over their shoulders, looking for all the world like three little dogs that expected to have a stone thrown after them.

"I wouldn't shoot at them," said Hugh, as Jack reached down his hand to draw his rifle from its scabbard: "I don't know how these pack horses are about shooting, and if you were to fire a shot, it might make one of 'em buck, and get us into some little trouble."

It was nearly night before the ranch house was seen.