CHAPTER XXIII.

HUNTING THE BIG-HORN.

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 scurried 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 left 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.”

“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 gorge 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 the most favorable circumstances.

Oscar thought of all these things as he toiled slowly up the gorge, stopping every few feet to examine the ground before him, and making use of every bush and bowlder to cover his advance; and the difficulties he saw in his way made him all the more determined to succeed.

“Big Thompson doesn’t think much of my abilities as a hunter,” said he to himself, “and I don’t know how I could surprise him more than by shooting a big-horn, unless I were to shoot a panther or a grizzly, and that is something I don’t expect to do. In fact, I have no desire to attempt it. The wind is in my favor, and that is something upon which I can congratulate myself.”

For nearly an hour Oscar continued to work his way along the ravine; and, when he believed that he had arrived at a point opposite the pinnacle on which he had seen the sentinel big-horn, he turned into the bushes and began clambering slowly up the cliff.

As it was almost perpendicular, his progress was necessarily slow, but he reached the top at last; and, cautiously raising his head, looked over it.

He had no sooner done so than he uttered an exclamation under his breath, and drew his head quickly back again.

He crouched behind the cliff long enough to cock his gun, and then he straightened up, at the same time drawing the weapon to his shoulder.

Before him was a level plateau, containing perhaps ten or fifteen acres. On the right, and in front, it was bounded by the gorge that Oscar had been following; and on the left was the valley in which the camp was located.

On the other side rose a perpendicular wall of rock that extended entirely across the plateau. Near the base of this rock were the objects that had attracted Oscar’s attention—four gray wolves, which were feasting on a mountain sheep they had killed for their breakfast. Oscar knew at once that it was a sheep, for he could see the head and horns.

“What a pity that I didn’t happen along here when they first killed him!” was the boy’s mental reflection. “He must have been a fine fellow, judging by the size of those horns. Well, as I didn’t get the sheep, I’ll knock over a couple of the wolves for our museum; and the horns I’ll give to Sam Hynes to put up in his mother’s dining-room.”

So saying, Oscar rested his rifle over the top of the bluff; and, drawing a bead on the largest of the wolves, waited with all the patience he could command for one of his companions to get behind him, hoping to kill both of them with one bullet.

The wolves gnawed and snapped at one another over their meal; and, although they were constantly changing their positions, and the two that Oscar wished to secure frequently came within range, their motions were so rapid that he dared not fire at them for fear of missing his mark.

At the report of his gun they would doubtless take to their heels, and his chances for shooting one on the run were not one in a thousand.

While the boy was waiting for a shot, he was suddenly startled by hearing a loud snort close at hand; and, turning his head quickly, he was astonished almost beyond measure to see an immense mountain-sheep standing on the edge of the plateau.

His gaze was fastened upon the wolves, whose presence did not seem to cause him the least alarm. It rather seemed to encourage him; for now and then he lifted one of his forefeet, and stamped it spitefully on the ground, after the manner of a domestic sheep.

It was the first of these animals of which Oscar had ever obtained so near a view; and he told himself that in color and shape it resembled a deer more than it resembled anything else.

It was covered with hair instead of wool, and its color was tawny, changing to white on the flanks and breast. But it carried the horns of a sheep, and they were really magnificent.

Where the animal came from so suddenly Oscar did not know, nor did he stop to ask himself the question. He was there, and the next thing was to secure him.

Remembering the mountain-sheep’s wary nature, Oscar exercised the utmost caution in turning the muzzle of his rifle from the wolves toward the buck.

Fortunately he succeeded in accomplishing this without alarming the timid animal, which was giving all his attention to the wolves; and, glancing along the clean, brown barrel, the boy was on the very point of pressing the trigger when another interruption occurred.

Three or four heads, adorned with horns like the gnarled branches of an oak, suddenly appeared above the edge of the plateau, and as many more came close behind them; these were followed by others; and, in less than a minute, a dozen full-grown bucks were standing in plain view of the young hunter, and not more than fifty yards away.