"Now, I'll tell you what, son," said Hugh, "any of these horses we take along can be ridden, and they ain't none of 'em got loads so heavy but what three of 'em can carry all the stuff there is; so that if anything should happen to either of our riding horses we can still have a horse apiece to ride. Maybe it might be a pretty good thing to take along an extra saddle horse or two. I don't know as it would, and I don't know as it would. Of course for awhile we've got to picket all these horses, and when you've got to do that, every extra horse makes a lot of trouble, and makes another rope to lose. We'll have to think about that and I reckon I'll ask Jo if he knows of any one of these horses that's good to stay about camp; easy caught, and yet is pretty fast. You see, pretty nearly all these is new horses, and I don't know much about them."
By this time the afternoon was well advanced; the sun was still shining warmly, and the snow which had fallen in the morning was melting fast. Hugh and Jack went over to the sunny side of the bunk-house and sat down there on a log, and Hugh filled his pipe and smoked.
"There's one thing," he said, "we ought to have, but we ain't got it, and we ain't likely to get it; we ought to have some dried meat to take along. You see, we won't have no time to hunt, travelling steady, the way we will, and for a while we'll have to live on bacon. Of course there'll be a chance to kill an antelope now and then, but until we strike buffalo we can't expect much fresh meat. I'd like it right well if we had a little bunch of dried meat, but we ain't got it. If your uncle had thought best to send back and get some of that beef I butchered yesterday, we could have dried some of that, but he didn't want to eat another man's beef, and I don't know as I blame him much. If he did that this spring, somebody might kill a beef that belonged to him in the fall, just because he was hungry. Might be such a thing as we'd get a piece of beef over to Powell's; we'll about make his ranch to-morrow night, and then that'll be the last place we'll strike till we get way up north."
"Oh, do we go by Powell's?" said Jack; "I'd like to see all of them again, Charlie, Bess and Mr. and Mrs. Powell; they were nice to us last summer."
"Yes," said Hugh, "they're good people. Good neighbours. You know, don't you," he went on, "Powell bought thirty saddle horses from your uncle last fall, after you left; he paid fifty dollars a head for 'em, and sold 'em for sixty-five. He's quite a trader, Powell is."
As they sat there talking, the sound of a cow bell was heard at first faintly, and a long way off, but it kept getting nearer and nearer. Jack asked Hugh, "Who gets the milk cows now, Hugh?"
"Jo does. He often says he wishes he had you to send out to bring 'em in; but that ain't one of the milk cows coming now."
"Well, what is it? I thought it was old Browny's bell."
"No, that's the bell old Browny used to wear, but your elk wears it now, and that's him a-coming."