“No,” said Hugh, “you’re right about that. Meat is plenty here, but that’s no reason why we should waste it. Now, let’s put this fire out and cover it up with snow, so that there’ll be no danger of the tent’s catching fire, and then we’ll go to bed. What do you say?”
At once the boys were on their feet, pulling the fire to pieces and extinguishing the burning brands, by throwing them into the snow, and then bringing a few double handfuls of snow they threw them on to the ashes of the fire, and with much smoke and steam the last sparks were extinguished. A little later the regular breathing of the three men in the tent showed that all were asleep.
It must have been in the middle of the night or perhaps toward morning, when Jack was half awakened by hearing a noise, something like scratching, which he did not recognize, but a moment later he was thoroughly aroused by hearing a loud thump on the ground just outside the tent and then the sound of something galloping. His first thought was that one of the horses had come up close to the tent and knocked something down, but almost at once he recognized that this could not have been the cause of the sound, because the footfalls were not heavy enough to have been made by a horse. Rising on his elbow, he looked about. It was quite light in the tent, for a brilliant moon was shining, and he could plainly see Hugh get up, walk to the door and look out.
“What is it, Hugh?” asked Jack.
For a moment Hugh did not answer, and then said, “Why, something has carried off that bundle of meat. No, he hasn’t either. Here’s the meat lying in the snow and there is the thing that knocked it down over there under the pine tree, where we were cutting up the elk. I can see it plain in the snow, but I can’t make out what it is. It’s some animal, because it’s moving.”
By this time Jack was on his feet and had his head out of the tent door. He could plainly see some not very large animal crouched in the snow and could hear faintly the scratching, tearing sound of an animal gnawing a bone, and at once said, “Why, Hugh, whatever it is, he’s gnawing on the bones of that elk we left over there.”
“So he is,” said Hugh. “Let’s see what it is,” and, reaching down, he took his rifle and, stepping outside of the tent door, fired at the creature. It paid no attention whatever, but went on eating. Then Hugh fired another shot and then another, and after the fourth shot, the animal sprang into the air and, turning about, bounded off into the shadow and was not seen again. Hugh picked up the bundle of elk meat and put it in among the branches of the tree, and then he and Jack went back into the tent.
“What was it, Hugh?” asked Jack.
“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t know. It was either a mountain lion or a lynx or a bob-cat, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a bit afraid.”
“No,” said Jack, “I could see that. We ought to be glad that it didn’t come into the tent with us.”