"I don't see hide or hair of it, though, Toby?" he complained.
"No more you kin," returned the other, with decision marked in both voice and manner; "but all the same it's down thar, not more'n a hundred feet at most. I got my bearin's fine. Look off yonder, and yell see whar we lay when ye did the shootin' at the big horns."
"He's right, Step Hen," said Davy Jones, after looking to where the guide was pointing so confidently. "I'd know that rock among a thousand. I'll never forget it, either. And yes, your sheep must be lying below us right now."
"I think the same, fellows," asserted Smithy, who was beginning to feel that he ought to give his opinion of things after this, since he was now an actual boni fide hunter, and had even secured one of the most wary of all wild animals in the whole West.
"But why don't I see it, then?" demanded Step Hen, always very stubborn, and needing to be shown.
"Ye see," the guide explained, "the face of the mountain backs in some, in a general way. That tells the story. The only thing that bothers me is, if I had ought to let ye try and get down thar, so's to shove the sheep off, and land it at the bottom; or make the riffle myself."
"Oh! I wouldn't think of letting you try it," declared Step Hen, quickly. "I'm young and spry, and used to climbing up cliffs and such stunts, besides," he added as a clincher, "it's my big horn, you know."
Had either of the other boys backed him up, the chances were that Toby Smathers might have refused to give his permission; for he knew that there would naturally be considerable risk involved in such an undertaking; but then both Davy and his comrade, Smithy, saw nothing so very unusual in the proceeding, the one because he was not accustomed to judging such things; and Davy on account of being such a clever gymnast himself, always doing dangerous tricks, such as hanging from a high limb of a tree by his toes, coming down the outside of a tree by using the branches as a descending ladder, and all such "crazy antics," as Giraffe called them.
"Here, somebody hold my gun," said Step Hen, with an air of resolution.
"You're going to be some keerful, I take it?" questioned the guide, dubiously.