After they had looked down the valley of Swift Current into the flat at the foot of lower St. Mary’s Lake and taken a last look over the glacier, they turned aside and, working out to the rocks, began to make their way down to Hugh.
At a little distance the side of the mountain looked absolutely vertical, and it did not seem possible that man, nor even sheep, could have passed along it, but as they went on they found no difficulty in making their way, and recognized one of the deceptions of these grand and mysterious hills. Joe, when they first started down, had been not a little alarmed, and said, “I’m afraid we never will see White Bull again. He could not have gone down such a place as this; he must have fallen and been killed.”
“Nonsense,” said Jack, “of course he went down all right, and we are going to follow him down. You’ll see it won’t be bad as we go on.”
Before long they came to the blood trail of the sheep, and following that kept on their way until they saw Hugh standing by a fire in a little valley below them.
“Hurrah!” said Jack, “Hugh is cooking meat. I’m mighty glad, for I feel hungry.”
When they had worked their way down to within a few hundred yards of him, zigzagging this way and that over the steep ledges, Hugh saw them and waved his hand, and presently when they got down within speaking distance, he called out, “Well, son, you killed the best piece of meat in the mountains.”
“Good,” said Jack, “I hope you have put some of it on the fire.”
“That’s what the fire is there for,” said Hugh. “Come on down.”
The boys at length reached a point about fifty feet above Hugh, and then had to go off to one side to find a way down the cliff. When they had come near the fire, however, Hugh showed them the ram lying at the edge of the snow bank from which he had drawn him.
“You see,” said Hugh, “when I got almost up to him, he was lying on the rocks right at the top of this cliff with his head down and pretty nearly dead; but when I got quite close to him he heard me walking and got on his feet again and just walked over the cliff and fell into this snow bank down here. When I got to him he was dead. Nice ram, isn’t he?”