"Get busy then, or he'll give you the slip after all. Quick, Smithy, or I'll be tempted to shoot him myself. Whoop! you did it that time, Smithy! Good boy!" and Step Hen fairly danced in his excitement.
Smithy had made good. How he did it, he never could tell; but somehow, when he just pointed his gun in a general way toward the escaping big-horn, and pulled the trigger, why, the already badly wounded animal fell over, gave a couple of last kicks, and then lay still.
But strange to say, Smithy was less given to excitement over his exploit than either of the other boys. As they all bent over the big-horn to admire his sturdy frame, and the head ornaments that distinguish him among all his kind, Smithy was seen to stroke the hairy back of the dead sheep, and clinch his teeth hard together, as though after all he felt half sorry that a sudden whim had caused him to actually take a life that nothing could restore. Evidently it would be some time before Smithy could so far overcome his former gentle traits of character to feel the hunter's fierce lust for his quarry.
"But this ain't getting my big-horn, you know," remarked Step Hen, as though the feel of those massive curved head-pieces had thrown him into a new fever of impatience to secure his own trophies; for it would be a shame if the greenhorn of the party should be the only one to exhibit positive evidences of their having shot game.
"Come along then, and we'll soon git around to whar p'raps ye might climb down, if so be ye're keerful not to slip," and the guide once more started off.
"Oh! do we abandon my big-horn, then?" cried Smithy, as though half tempted to refuse to leave the spot on what might prove to be a wild-goose chase; to him it seemed like leaving the substance to try and catch the shadow.
"We kin come back this way, and take keer of it then," said Toby; and with this assurance Smithy had to rest content.
After some further scrambling along the face of the steep slope, digging their toes into the shale that often crumbled under them, when they might risk a serious ride down the side of the mountain only for the fact that they managed to cling fast with their hands, they reached a point where it was extra rocky, and a pretty sheer descent.
"Down thar your sheep lies," the guide said, pointing as he spoke.
Step Hen immediately laid his gun aside, and crawling to the edge he looked over.