"All right, if you must stop," replied Ned, looking forward regretfully. "But ought we not to make another mile or two before we camp?"
"You can do what you please, but I cain't crawl another yard, and don't mean to try to. Bring yourself to an anchor, Ned, and let's have grub."
Of course Ned yielded. It was no good going on alone.
"Say, Ned," cried Steve a few minutes later, "we aren't the first to camp here. Look at this."
"This" was the carcase of a mule-deer, which lay in the hollow in which Steve wanted to camp.
"Well, old chap, that spoils your hollow, I'm afraid. It is too high to be pleasant as a bed-fellow. By Jove, look here!" and stooping, Ned picked up the empty shell of a Winchester cartridge.
"The fellow who killed that deer has camped right alongside his kill," remarked Steve. "See here, he has cut off a joint to carry away with him;" and Steve pointed to where a whole quarter had evidently been neatly taken off with a knife. "It's some Indian, I reckon, out hunting."
"No, that is no Indian's work, Steve. An Indian would have cleaned his beast, and even if he did not mean to come back for the meat he would have severed the joints and laid them neatly side by side. It is almost a part of his religion to treat what he kills with some show of respect. The man who slept here was a white man."
"Cruickshank?" suggested Steve.
"Yes, I think so," replied Ned quietly. "But he must have been here some weeks ago."