“There’s a ham hanging up over there in the brush,” answered Jesse. “We all went out, but I killed him.”
“Is that so, John?” asked Rob.
“It certainly is,” said John. “Yes, Jesse is the big chief to-night.”
“We only went a little way, too,” said Jesse, “just up over the ridge there, I don’t suppose more than half a mile. It must have been about noon when we started, and Moise didn’t think we were going to see anything, and neither did we. So we sat down, and in an hour or so I was shooting at a mark to see how my rifle would do. All at once we saw this fellow—it wasn’t a very big one, with little bits of horns—come out and stand around looking to see what the noise was about. So I just took a rest over a log, and I plugged him!”
Jesse stood up straight, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, a very proud young boy indeed.
Moise, strolling around, was grinning happily when at last he met the unsuccessful hunters.
“Those Jesse boy, she’ll been good shot,” said he. “I s’pose, Alex, you’ll not make much hunter out of yourself, hein?”
“Well,” said Alex, “we let some mighty good cow venison get away from us, all right.”
“Never mind,” said Moise, consolingly, “we’ll got fat young caribou now plenty for two—three days, maybe so.”