A couple of miles this side of camp the slope of the mountain grew easier and scattered trees began to clothe its side. They crossed a long, low point of timber and from here there was a gentle descent toward camp, through a dry open forest. They were almost within sight of camp when Jack heard a sound, stopped, and raised his gun, and then a stick cracked in the timber not far off. Jack threw his gun to his shoulder and fired, and in a moment the timber before them seemed filled with animals, which disappeared almost at once, and the noise of their footsteps and of the sticks which they broke in their flight, grew fainter and fainter.
The boys had glimpses of elk running in all directions, but had no chance to shoot again.
“Well,” said Jack, “I don’t know very certainly what I shot at, but I think it was a young bull elk. Let’s go over and see if we can find anything.”
Stepping briskly forward, the boys were soon near the point where the animal had stood at which Jack fired. After looking about for a moment or two, Joe said, “You hit him;” and pointed to a dark spot on a weathered tree trunk, which Jack could see was blood.
The boys circled about, looking carefully at the ground, the trunks of the trees, and the leaves of the low-growing plants, and presently Jack saw that Joe had found the trail, which he was following, slowly at first, because the sign was hard to see, and then more rapidly.
Jack walked after him and together they followed the trail which led down toward the camp. The sign was, at first, slight, but after they had gone some distance they could see a good deal of blood on the ground on both sides of the tracks, and from this Joe declared that the animal was hit in the lungs and would not go far. He was right; a hundred yards further on the graceful form of a young bull elk was stretched on the ground. It was a yearling, of course with its horns in the velvet and as yet quite soft.
The boys dressed the animal and then, walking down to the camp, caught and saddled a pack horse and, bringing it up into the timber, quartered the elk, packed it on the horse and returned to camp, where they unloaded their meat at the foot of a tree and, getting a couple of sling ropes, managed with some labor to haul the quarters into the branches well above the ground.
“Now,” said Joe, “when White Bull comes in we’ll see what he says and, if he thinks best, we’ll cut out and dry a lot of that elk meat, and take it along with us. We can’t be sure at this time of the year, that we’re going to kill something every day.”
All through the afternoon they lounged about the fire, and the sun was still two or three hours high when Jack, who for some time had been watching the mountainsides to the north, saw Hugh coming down the slope a long way off toward the camp.
“Hurrah, Joe!” said Jack, “there’s Hugh. Pretty soon we’ll find out what he’s seen and tell him what we have done.”