XI
LESSONS IN WILD LIFE
“
Well, Alex,” said John, the morning after the sheep hunt, as they sat about the fire after breakfast, “it doesn’t look as though we’d saved much weight.”
“How do you mean, Mr. John?”
“Well, you said we couldn’t kill any grizzlies because the skins were too heavy. It seems to me that sheep heads are just as heavy as grizzly heads.”
“That’s so,” said Alex, “but the sheep were good to eat, and we couldn’t leave the heads in the hills after we had killed them. We’ll try to get them down in the canoe somehow. The sheep meat has been very useful, and I wish we had more of it. We’ll eat it almost all up in this camp, I’m thinking.”
“I suppose we’d better. That reminds me of a story my Uncle Dick told me,” ventured Jesse. “He said he was out fishing with a friend one time, and they wanted some grasshoppers for bait, and hadn’t any way to carry them. They had a jar of marmalade, so they sat down and ate all the marmalade, and then they had a good place to keep their grasshoppers. I suppose if we eat all the meat up, we’ll have a place for the heads.”