“Now, boys, I got him,” said he, “and I guess it’s just as well he didn’t have to wait till now for us to come. But speaking of trailing, Moise, you certainly know your business.”
“Oh yes,” said Moise, “every man in this country he’ll mus’ know how to trail, else he’ll go hongree some tam. My onkle she’ll taught me how for follow trail.”
“Well,” said Alex, “here’s some more meat to get down to the boat, I suppose, and we need meat badly, too. We ought not to waste it, but if we take it all on board we’ll have to hurry to get down to Peace River Landing with it, because it is more than we can possibly eat.”
The two older hunters now drew their big buffalo knives and fell to work skinning and dismembering the carcass of the bear, the boys helping as they could. It was plainly the intention of Alex and Moise to make one trip with meat and hide.
In order to carry the green bear hide—always a slippery and awkward thing to pack—Moise now showed a little device often practised, as he said, among the Crees. He cut two sharpened sticks, each about a couple of feet in length, and placing these down on the hide, folded the hide around them, so that it made a sharp, four-cornered pack. He lashed the hide tightly inside these four corners, and then lifting it up and down, smilingly showed the boys that the green hide now would not slip, but would remain in place, thus making a much better pack. He slung his belt at the corners of the pack, and then motioned to Alex to throw up on top of his pack one of the hams of the bear which had been detached from the carcass. When Moise got his load he started off at a trot, taking a course different from that on which they had come.
Alex in turn used his belt and some thongs he had in making a pack of the remainder of the meat, which, heavy as it seemed, he managed to shoulder, leaving the boys nothing to carry except the skull of the bear, which they had expressed a wish to retain with the robe.
“Do you suppose we’ll ever get to be men as strong as that?” asked Rob in a whisper, pointing to the solitary figure of the breed now passing rapidly down the slope.
“I didn’t know anybody was so strong,” admitted Jesse. “They must be pretty good men, I’m thinking.”
“But which way are they going?” asked John. “Do you suppose they’re lost?”
“We’ll follow and see,” answered Rob. “They seem to know their own way pretty well.”