"I dess dat's wight," said Fay, very soberly.
Frank surrendered his rifle to Barney, who insisted on taking the camera also, and then, with the child in his arms, followed the Irish lad on the return tramp to camp.
It proved to be a long, tiresome trudge, and the sun was setting when the boys came in sight of a white tent that was pitched near a spring of cool water and a growth of pines down in a pretty valley.
Once or twice Fay had murmured that she was "so hundry," but when the camp was sighted, she was asleep in Frank's arms, her head of tangled golden curls lying on his shoulder.
A fire was blazing in front of the tent, sending a thin column of smoke straight up into the still air.
Near the fire, with a pipe in his mouth, was sitting a grizzled old man, whose appearance indicated that he was a veteran of the mountains and plains.
This was Roxy Jules, generally known as "Old Rocks." He was one of the professional guides who make a business of taking parties of tourists through the park and showing them its wonders.
Between two trees a hammock was strung, and another man, a little fellow with fiery-red hair and whiskers, was reclining. Gold-bowed spectacles were perched on his nose, and he was studying a book.
All at once Old Rocks gave a queer kind of a grunt. As it did not arouse the man in the hammock, he grunted again. That not proving effectual, he growled:
"Wa-al, I wonders whut kind o' game them yar kids hev struck now?"