"Well," said Hugh, "you told it mighty well, but I don't wonder much, for Four Bears is about the best story teller I ever heard. But you remember it mighty well, and tell it well. It's a right good story.
"Now, boys," he added, "I think to-morrow we'll pack up and go a day or two further down the creek here, and then see what turns up. These horses of ours have filled themselves up pretty well now, and are able to go along all right, and we might as well go on a little further. So, say we pack up to-morrow morning."
"All right," said the boys, and they went to bed.
CHAPTER XVIII
JACK'S FIRST MOOSE
Travel down the stream next day was easy. The valley widened out, and the hills on either side grew lower. Twice during the march they came to broad meadows, partly overgrown with willows, old beaver meadows, Hugh said; and instead of going through them they went around close to the hills, so as to avoid any possible trouble from miry spots.
After supper that night at camp Hugh said to the boys, "I reckon pretty quick we'll turn off south and follow up some creek, so as to get over to the Divide, and cross down onto Sweetwater. If I ain't mistaken, before we get much further along we'll strike a big stream coming in from the south, and when we do, we've got to turn and follow that up. I've heard tell of a little town off here to the south, but I don't know where it's at, and we don't want to go to it, anyhow."
About noon next day they began to see a wide valley opening up to the south, and Hugh told them that this must be the creek he had been looking for. They did not follow the stream down to where the river from the south joined it, but cutting across southwest, climbed the hill, and journeyed through beautiful green timber in the direction in which they wished to go. Several times they came on beautiful mountain lakes lying in the timber, and while passing one of these Hugh stopped and pointed to the ground, and when Jack came along he saw there a track which he knew must belong to a moose. He wished that he might get a shot at a moose, and kept his eyes wide open as they journeyed along, but saw nothing. Two or three times during the day they rode near enough to the river they were following up to hear its rushing, and the noise of water-falls, but they could not see them. Hugh did not seem to be following any road at all,—there was not even a game trail,—but he wound in and out among the timber, keeping in the general direction from which the river came. About the middle of the afternoon he turned to the left, and worked down into the valley of the stream, which, though often narrow, sometimes spread out and showed charming little park-like meadows, in one of which they stopped to camp. After camp had been made, the horses attended to, and supper eaten, Jack said to Hugh, "Are there many moose in this country, Hugh?"
"Well," said Hugh, "I don't know exactly what you call many. There used to be plenty here, and I expect if a man was hunting he might run across one once in a while. Of course moose stick close to the timber and the brush, and you don't see them as easily as you do the elk, that feed on the bald hillsides or on the prairie."
"I'd like mighty well to get a shot at one," said Jack.