Their camp that night was on a little spring at the head of the small creek that they had been following up, and high hills, almost mountains, rose to the north of them. It seemed to be a country abounding in game, for at night when Jack rode out to round up the horses—since it was thought best now for a little while to picket most of them—he started from the underbrush about the camp no less than seven deer, and none of them seemed especially frightened but trotted off and stood looking at him as he gathered up his animals. After darkness had fallen and they were sitting about the fire, Hugh smoking a last pipe before going to bed, Jack said:—
"What does it mean, Hugh, our seeing so much game here? We haven't seen antelope or deer either as plenty since we have been out as to-day."
"Well," said Hugh, "I don't know as I can tell you, but it appears to me that the Indians haven't been in this country for quite a while, and it's a sure thing no white men have. The only people that travel around here are skin hunters, and when they're in the country we don't find the game tame like it is here. There's lots of buffalo been here too, as you can see, but I ain't seen any right fresh signs for two or three days. Likely we'll run on some though any time. We don't want to kill nothing, though, while we've got any of this meat left."
"No," said Jack, "there'd be no sense in shooting these animals down just to let 'em lie there. It's lots more fun to watch 'em when they're right tame this way than it is to kill 'em."
"That's so," said Hugh; "but most people don't think that way. I wish more of 'em did. Most men when they see anything that's alive they want to kill it, and they want to keep killing as long as there's anything around that moves."
The next day the two passed over a low divide between high hills, and soon came upon water running to the north. Hugh told Jack that this was a branch of the Judith River, that runs into the Missouri from the south. "I don't know," he said, "whether you'd call this the main creek or not; it's lots longer than the other fork that rises in the Judith Mountains, but it don't carry near so much water. The big creek is what we call Big Spring Creek; it flows a heap of water, and mighty nice water too, and the stream is full of trout." As they were passing down the stream Jack suddenly saw Hugh draw in his horse and look long and intently down the valley; then he went on again, and as Jack passed over the ridge he saw half a mile ahead what looked like the poles of two lodges, as Hugh had described them, but they were not lodges for they were not covered. When they had reached these poles they saw that they were two large tripods about twenty feet in height, and from the legs of these tripods were hanging hundreds of moccasins. Some were plain and some beautifully ornamented with beads or with porcupine quills; but the curious thing about them was that they were all made for little feet; in other words they were children's moccasins. Hugh and Jack both dismounted and walked around the tripods, looking at them carefully. Most of the moccasins were about three inches long, and none seemed more than five inches.
"What are these put here for, Hugh?" said Jack.
"Blest if I know," said Hugh. "It's some offering; likely a present to the sun; but why they're all children's moccasins beats me. I expect they're put up here by the Crows, likely; but it might be the Gros Ventres. You see, we're in a kind of a No-man's-land, here. All the Indians pass through on their way to the fort to trade, and yet none of 'em has any rights here."
For several days after this they travelled over the prairie but were constantly in sight of mountains which rose like great islands from the rolling plain. Now they saw buffalo again, and once on crossing a wooded stream valley they started a little band of cow elk with their calves, which trotted swiftly away toward the mountains without being shot at. One night Hugh said to Jack:—