“ShallIshoot’em?” asked Budge, as a particularly large one dashed by.
“If you want to,” replied Jack. “But I’m going to wait for bigger game. A buck or a ram for mine, eh, Nat?”
“That’s what.”
But the bucks and the rams did not seem to be on view that day, and after riding about all the morning the three boys stopped to rest near a spring and eat their lunch.
“I tell you what we’ll do,” suggested Jack as they prepared to resume their journey. “Let’s leave the horses here and work up that mountain,” and he pointed to the steep sides of a towering peak, at the foot of which they had halted.
“I’m with you,” agreed Nat.
“’Stoomuchwork,” announced Budge as he turned over on his back and began chewing some fresh gum. “I’ll stay here until you come back.”
They tried to get him to come with them, but he would not, so Jack and Nat started off alone. They had not gone more than a mile before Jack, who was slightly in advance, came to a sudden halt and motioned to Nat to make no noise.
“There he is,” whispered Jack, when Nat had joined him, and he pointed to a distant boulder that jutted out from the side of the mountain, a short distance away.
Nat looked, and saw something that made the blood leap in his veins. It was a big mountain ram, with a massive pair of horns—a fine specimen. The animal’s back was toward them, and it seemed to be viewing the valley spread out below it.