Under the experienced hands of Leo and Uncle Dick the great robe was rapidly removed. Leo rolled it into a pack, and Uncle Dick showed him how to make it firm by using two square-pointed sticks to hold it in shape after it was folded—a trick Moise had taught them long before. Leo, though not a large man, proved powerful, for he scorned all assistance after the heavy pack was once on his shoulders, and so staggered down the mountainside. So pleased were the boys over the success of their hunt that they hardly noticed the icy ford when again they plunged through the creek on their way to camp.
XXII
THE YOUNG GRIZZLY-HUNTERS
So excited were our young hunters over their first bear-hunt that they scarcely slept at all that night. It was a very merry party which sat late about the little camp-fire high up in the mountains. Their camp was rather a bivouac than a regular encampment, but they now scorned any discomfort, and, indeed, exulted in their primitive condition.
“Now, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, “what do you think about these boys as hunters?”
“One boy heap shoot,” grunted Leo. “Kill ’um one bear when mans along. Don’t know about other boys.”
“But let me tell you they have killed bear before now, and big ones, too. Why, two years ago, up in Alaska, all by themselves, they killed a Kadiak bear a good deal bigger than this one whose hide we have here for our mattress to-night.”