CHAPTER XXV.

OSCAR DISCOVERS SOMETHING.

“I believe you hunters generally make a litter to carry your game home on, don’t you?” continued Oscar.

“We do sometimes, when thar’s two fellers to tote it,” replied Big Thompson.

“Well, there are two of us here; but I never could carry one end of a litter with all those animals piled on it. The distance is too great and the load would be too heavy.”

“Yes, I reckon seven or eight hundred pounds would be a pretty good lift for a chap of your inches, an’ yer a mighty well put up sort of a boy, too. We’ll have to snake ’em thar.”

“That would never do,” returned Oscar, quickly. “It would spoil the skins to haul the game so far over the snow.”

“They shan’t tech the snow at all. I’ll tell ye what I mean.”

Big Thompson gave the boy his rifle to hold, and, with the hatchet he always carried in his belt, cut down a small pine tree, which was to be used as a drag.

With the aid of this drag they succeeded, after infinite trouble, and two hours’ hard work, in transferring all the game from the plateau to the mouth of the gorge.

One of the big-horns was then placed on the drag and the guide started with it for the cabin, leaving Oscar to protect the rest from any hungry beast which might chance to pass that way.

The guide was obliged to make four trips between the gorge and the camp, and, as it was no easy work to haul the drag and its heavy burdens through the snow, two hours more were consumed, so that it was near the middle of the afternoon before Oscar saw his specimens safely housed.

After full justice had been done to the cutlets, which, under Big Thompson’s supervision, were cooked to perfection, Oscar set to work upon one of the sheep, while the guide sat by, smoking his pipe and watching all his movements with the keenest interest.

At midnight Oscar was tired enough to go to bed. He slept soundly until eight o’clock the next morning; and then awoke, to find that the fire had nearly gone out, that the breakfast that had been prepared for him was cold, and that the guide was missing.

“He’s gone out to set some of his traps,” said Oscar to himself, as he drew on his boots and went out to get an armful of wood from the pile in front of the cabin. “He told me last night that that was what he was going to do to-day. Well, I have three or four hours more of hard work before me; and, when it is done, I’ll take a stroll down the valley and see what I can find to shoot at.”

In a very few minutes the fire was burning brightly; and, after he had washed his hands and face, and brushed his hair in front of a small mirror that hung on the wall (he never neglected such little things as these simply because he was a hunter, and a hundred miles away from everybody except his guide), Oscar placed the coffee-pot and frying-pan on the coals, and laid the table for his breakfast.

He had brought with him a good many things in the way of supplies that Big Thompson had never seen in a hunter’s camp before, such as condensed milk, pressed tea, sugar, self-leavening flour, canned fruits, pickles, onions, beans, and desiccated potatoes.

It was just as easy, he thought, to live well, even in that remote region, as it was to keep himself neat in appearance; and he intended to do both.

Having eaten a hearty breakfast and set things in order in the cabin, Oscar resumed work upon his specimens; and, by twelve o’clock, the skins of the sheep, as well as those of the wolves, were packed snugly away in one corner, surmounted by the horns he intended to present to his friend, Sam Hynes.

This done, he buckled on his cartridge-belt, thrust a hatchet into it, and, taking his rifle down from its place over the door, set out for a hunt by himself.

Before deciding on his course, he stopped to see which way the wind was blowing. On glancing at the boughs of the evergreens behind the cabin, he observed that they hung motionless; there did not seem to be a breath of air stirring; but the boy, knowing that there is always more or less motion in the atmosphere, took a hunter’s way of finding out which direction the breeze came from.

This he did by moistening his finger in his mouth and holding it above his head. The back of his finger was toward the upper end of the valley; and, as it grew cold almost instantly, Oscar knew that what little wind there was, came from the mountains. He knew, too, that experienced hunters, while seeking for game, always travel against the wind; so, without further hesitation, he shouldered his rifle and started up the valley.

“The elk we saw on the day we arrived here went in this direction,” thought he, as he trudged along, keeping just in the edge of the timbers for concealment; “and who knows but I may be lucky enough to find them again? If I could get a fair shot at the old buck that carries those splendid antlers, I should have a prize indeed!”

Oscar worked his way cautiously through the woods, stopping now and then behind a convenient tree to take a survey of the valley before him, but not a living thing could he see.

All the game-animals seemed to have taken themselves off to a safer neighborhood; but that some of them had recently been about there was made apparent to Oscar before he had gone two miles from the cabin.

All of a sudden, while his thoughts were wandering far away from the valley, across the snow-covered prairie to the little village of Eaton and the friends he had left there, he came upon the place where a couple of deer had passed the preceding night.

He knew there were two of them, a large and a small one, for he could see the prints made by their bodies in the snow when they lay down to sleep.

He was satisfied, also, that they had left their beds that morning, for the appearance of the tracks that led to and from the thicket in which they had passed the night, told him so.

It had thawed just enough the day before to melt the top of the snow, and during the night it had frozen hard enough to form a thick crust over it.

The bottom of the tracks that led into the thicket was covered with this crust, while in those that led out of it the snow was soft to the touch.

Oscar was hunter enough to settle this matter, but it needed the skill of a more experienced person to determine how long the deer had been gone, and whether or not it would be worth while to pursue them.

“These tracks were not made by elk, because they are too small,” thought the boy, stooping down and looking through the trees on all sides of him, although he knew perfectly well that the animals that made the tracks were a long way from there at that moment. “They couldn’t have been made by common deer, either, for they’re too deep. There must have been heavy bodies on top of those little feet to sink them to such a depth in the snow. I wonder if they could have been made by black-tails? I wish Thompson was here.”

But Big Thompson was not there, and consequently if there was anything done toward securing the deer, whatever their name might be, Oscar must do it alone and unaided.

He did not expect to be successful in his efforts, but that did not deter him from taking up the trail at once.

Breaking into a rapid trot, which he had been known to sustain for three or four miles without the least inconvenience, he followed the tracks out of the timber and across the valley toward the brook.

When he reached the stream he found that the deer had spent considerable time there, browsing among the willows, for a good many branches were broken down, twigs and leaves were scattered about over the snow, and the two trails ran across each other in every direction; but, by devoting himself entirely to the tracks made by the larger animal, the young hunter succeeded in following him through all his devious windings, and he finally trailed him out of the willows and back across the valley to the timber that grew at the foot of the hills.

Here he stopped, discouraged.

“It’s no use,” said he, as he looked about for a fallen log on which he could sit down and rest for a few minutes. “I have followed this trail for two hours and a half,” he added, consulting his watch, “and now I must give it up. They were frightened at something as they passed along here, and began to run. Their tracks show that very plainly, and Thompson says that if a black-tail once makes up his mind that it is necessary for him to show his speed, he will keep it up until——Hello! what’s that?”

While Oscar was looking around for a seat, he discovered something he was not looking for, and that was another trail, that led diagonally across the valley from the willows until it struck the trail of the deer, a few yards from the spot on which he stood, and then it turned and followed in the direction in which the game had fled.

Oscar ran up to this trail and examined it with no little interest. It was made by a man—a big man, too, judging by the size of his feet—and he wore moccasins.

The distance between his tracks showed that he had broken into a run the moment he struck the trail, and this made it evident that he had decided to pursue the deer.

“Aha!” said Oscar, shouldering his rifle, and once more setting off at his best pace, “Thompson has the start of me this time. But I can’t imagine how he comes to be here, for I understood him to say that he was going _down_ the valley to the place where we saw that otter-slide. I’ll not go back to camp until I find him.”

Oscar now had an opportunity to make some estimate of the speed his guide could put forth when occasion rendered it necessary. He must be set on springs that recoiled sharply whenever his feet touched the ground, Oscar thought, for his tracks were so far apart that the boy could scarcely step into them.

Furthermore, he kept up the same pace without intermission for two long, weary miles; and then Oscar began to realize that Big Thompson could run long as well as rapidly.

The boy was nearly out of breath by this time; and, after a short burst of speed, made with the hope of coming within sight of his guide, he settled down into a walk.

As he moved slowly along, some things Big Thompson had told him in regard to mule-deer came into his mind.

The guide had informed him that in vigilance this animal was fully equal to the mountain sheep, and that in cunning he could give a fox points and beat him.

One of the favorite tricks of an experienced old buck was this: when he became aware that he was pursued, he would run like the wind until he was certain that he had gained a good start of his enemy, then take a short circle to the right or left of his trail, run back a mile or two parallel with and a short distance from it, and finally stop on some hill, from whose summit he could see the country over which he had just passed without being seen himself. When he discovered the hunter advancing along the trail below him, he would take to his heels again, only to repeat the trick a few minutes later.

It was the recollection of this piece of information that caused Oscar to turn his head and look toward a ridge on his right hand, that terminated in a bluff, about fifty feet in height.

As he did so, his eyes opened to their widest extent, and his hands trembled as he took his gun from his shoulder, and laid it in the hollow of his arm.