"I expect they will, and we needn't make up our minds about getting any horse until we get to Powell's. Maybe to-morrow we'll get Charlie to ride out with us for two or three hours, and help drive them horses. I expect if we can get 'em started right to-morrow, they'll go along pretty good."
After fifteen or twenty minutes they mounted and started on again. The horses had been feeding busily all this time, and now when they were driven along after the lead horse, they went more quietly, and made less trouble. Still, the day seemed a long one to Jack. They passed plenty of antelope on the prairie, but he had no time to think of them; he felt obliged to watch the horses constantly, and to keep them as close behind Hugh as he could. The prairie was full of pleasant sights and sounds, but there was no chance for him to enjoy them.
He felt very glad when, late in the afternoon, the low buildings of the Powell place came in sight. Half an hour later they were near enough to see the men working about the house, and then to see two figures in skirts come to the door and look out at them, and then at last to hear the delighted whoop of Charlie and the cheery greeting of Mr. Powell, as they came forward to shake hands with them. The horses were quickly unpacked and put in the pasture, the loads put under cover, and then all the family gathered around Jack and Hugh to hear the news from the neighbouring ranch.
"So you're really going to make that trip you talked about, are you, Jack?" said Charlie. "I tell you I'd give all my old boots if I were going along."
"So would I mine, Charlie," Jack replied. "I'll bet we could have a good time together. It's a great chance. You see, we're going up into the buffalo country, and we're going to be with the Indians, and see what they do and how they live. There ain't many fellows have a chance like this, and I wish you could be one of 'em."
"Well," said Charlie, "I know I can't; I've got to stay here and chase around over this prairie, riding for stock and killing wolves, when I might be going up there with you. It seems pretty hard, but I don't know as I ought to complain. I know father needs me, and now we're just getting a good start in stock, and if I were to go away he'd have to hire somebody to take my place, and he couldn't afford to do that. You see, father ain't like your uncle; I expect your uncle's a pretty rich man, but father ain't got anything except what you see here, and what stock we've got out on the range; then, besides that," he added, "I don't believe mother would be willing to have me go; she thinks it's awful dangerous for you and Hugh to go up there alone. We talked about that often last winter, and she said she didn't believe your mother'd ever let you go."
"Well," said Jack, "I don't believe there's much danger, because if there was, Uncle Will wouldn't have been willing to have me go, and I know he wanted me to. He said from the start that it would be a mighty good thing for me; and then, besides that, Hugh knows so much about Indians; they say that he's smarter even than an Indian about reading the signs of the prairie, and telling who is about, and what's likely to happen. Uncle Will said that he never would think of letting me go with any one except Hugh, for he thinks Hugh can carry a person through all right anywhere."
"I guess that's so; everybody that I ever heard talk about him in this country says that he's the smartest mountain man that there is. Why, last fall, after you went away, old Jim Baker and his brother John passed through here, and they asked especially after Hugh, and when they learned that he was working over at your uncle's, they turned off and went over there, two days' travel out of their road, to see him. Jim Baker didn't say anything, he never talks at all, but John said that Hugh was one of the old kind; that there were only a few of them left now in the mountains, and he wanted to see Hugh, and so did his brother."