Ned knew that what little air there was stirring came in their faces, which was a favorable sign; but it is doubtful whether any of the others noticed this fact, as they were not in the same class as the scout master when it came to understanding the elements that go to make a successful stalk.
Still no game obliged them by jumping out of some shady covert, which Jimmy considered mighty mean, when his stomach was fairly clamoring for food. When the nature of their surroundings showed a considerable change, and instead of mere brush and a scraggy growth of trees they found rocks surrounding them, with miniature canyons opening up all around, Ned began to think they had gone far enough.
He yielded, however, to Jimmy’s pleading when the latter suggested that they fasten the ponies in a thicket and advance a short distance on foot.
“It looks good to me up yonder,” Jimmy was saying feverishly. “I’m most sure now I glimpsed somethin’ movin’, which might have been a browsin’ Rocky Mountain big horn sheep, if they have such down here; or, again p’raps, it was a grizzly bear, or a four-legged venison feedin’. Let’s take a turn up there and if we don’t raise a solitary thing, why, I’ll give in and go back home empty-handed, feelin’ like a dog with his tail between his legs.”
Ned certainly would not think of letting Jimmy make that little excursion alone, nor did he feel like allowing only one other to accompany the would-be mighty hunter. Chunky had warned them particularly against getting scattered while exploring the country roundabout.
“Where one goes all must follow!” he said, positively.
“Bully for you, Ned,” Jimmy declared joyously. “The more the merrier they say; and Jack and me’ll be glad to have the whole bunch along.”
“How about the ponies, Ned; do you think it is safe to leave them here?” Harry wanted to know, a little anxious about the safety of their mounts; because a twelve-mile hike did not appeal to him just then.
“I don’t think anything or anybody would be apt to bother them,” Jack remarked, although no one had asked his opinion on the subject.
“Sure they won’t,” asserted the eager Jimmy, making his jaws work as though in imagination he were already enjoying a tender venison steak alongside of a splendid camp fire.