“Well,” said Joe, “I’d rather skin him here, only I don’t know much about skinning a wolverine. I don’t know whether it ought to be cased or split.”
“Neither do I,” said Jack; “but I reckon we’ll be safe if we case it. Then if it ought to be split we can do that afterward, can’t we?”
“Maybe,” said Joe. “I don’t know. Let’s case it, anyhow, and save ourselves the trouble of lugging the carcass back.”
The boys’ knives were sharp and the skinning did not take them long. It was an admirable fur, and as they worked, Jack did not tire of admiring it.
Soon the job was completed and they started for camp.
Hugh looked at them with some curiosity, as they approached the tent, and was much interested to see the wolverine’s skin.
“Who killed it?” he asked, finally.
“Joe,” said Jack. “He made a mighty good shot from about a hundred yards off and broke both shoulders. The animal was just dying when we got up to it and had gone hardly any distance.”
“You were lucky to kill it, Joe,” said Hugh. “It isn’t often one gets a chance at one of these fellows, and up here in the mountains—or for the matter of that anywhere else—if you wound one, that’s the end of it. You can never find him.”
“We didn’t know how to skin it, White Bull,” said Joe, “and we didn’t want to pack it into camp, so, finally, we cased it. Ought we to have split it?”