"Ha!" said John, "You make it good shoot. Good shoot," and he pointed to the elk's body, where, close behind the fore leg, were two tiny holes, not two inches apart, where both the boy's bullets had entered. Either shot would have killed him.
While Jack was looking at the elk, admiring his graceful, strong body, and wondering at the queer, soft warm bunches that grew out of his head, and which he knew must be the young growing horns, John sharpened his knife and prepared to cut up the bull. Bending its head back close to one of its shoulders, he turned the animal on its back, and propped it in position by placing a large stone under its hip. Before using his knife, however, he said to Jack, "Suppose you no want it skin, take it meat to house. Now, skin no good for moccasins. Biemby, be good."
Jack would have liked to carry in the whole elk, so that all might see what a splendid animal he had killed, but he was ashamed to say so to John, and returned a cheerful "All right," to his suggestion.
John's sharp knife quickly cut off the elk's hams and shoulders and then, turning the animal on its side, the long strips of meat lying on either side of the backbone—the sirloins—were torn out. Then very deftly John tied the hams together and threw them across Jack's saddle, fastening them to the cinch rings, put the shoulders and sirloins on his own horse, and they mounted and rode off down the mountain.
The ride toward the ranch was a happy one for Jack. He was glad that he had killed the elk, glad that he had made two such good shots, and he hummed a little song to himself as he rode along and every now and then reached down and smoothed the skin of the elk hams. He could not help thinking how badly he would have felt if he had missed the shot, and the elk had run away, or even if he had missed and John had killed it. This was much better.
Although this was only the second animal that he had killed, Jack was beginning to feel some confidence in his shooting, and was beginning too to understand that he knew nothing about hunting. He could not understand how it was that Hugh and John seemed to know exactly what to do. He could see though that they were never in a hurry, that they were not uneasy about whether the game was going to run away or not, that they were patient and took plenty of time. All this was just what Hugh had told him about hunting, and Jack determined that he would try hard to remember and always to act on it.
The sun was just setting as they rode up to the house. Two of the men could be seen coming across the prairie, driving a bunch of horses before them, and Hugh was just coming down to the corral to let out the milk cows.
He smiled as he saw the meat on the horses, and called out, "Well, son, you've got some meat, I see."
"Yes, seh," said John, "Jack make it good shoot. Good shoot, my tellin' you."
"You killed it, did you, son? Why, that's good. Where'd ye hit it?"