“I don’t know that I ever knew of a better hunt,” said Uncle Dick, at last, looking approvingly at the two bears. They had rolled and pulled the upper bear down to the lower, so that they now lay side by side. “Three bears like this in two days is certainly considerable hunting. These are big as Rob’s bear. The robes are prime, too, and not rubbed to amount to anything—one dark silver tip and one gray fellow. You can’t ever tell what color a grizzly is going to have or what he is going to do.”
They fell to work now, each party skinning out its own bear, a task which kept them employed for some time.
“We’d better kill the next bears closer to the foot of the slide,” said Jesse, laughing. “Then we won’t have to carry the skins so far.”
“A good idea,” assented his uncle. “I’m telling you, a full-sized grizzly-hide, green, is all a strong man can pack.”
“We’ll not try to carry them down to the main camp, will we?” inquired Jesse.
“Indeed, no. We’ll be lucky if we make it back to last night’s camp down the valley. There’s a bare chance that we may meet Moise and George there. They won’t know where we are, unless they heard us shooting.”
Leo came up to them at about this time, and stood looking at Jesse’s bear for some time. “S’pose me get ’um two twenty dollar, now?” said he, looking at Uncle Dick. The latter looked at him quizzically for a time, rubbing his chin with a finger.
“Well, Leo,” said he, “you’re a pretty good business man as well as a good grizzly-hunter. So you want to cash in on our bear, do you? All right; I feel so good about it that I’ll just go you—you shall have twenty dollars a head for these bears—and sixty dollars in two days, besides your wages, ought to leave you and your cousin George pretty well satisfied, eh?”
“Yes, feel heap good,” said Leo, grinning. “Buy plenty flour now. Plenty grub on Fort George.”