He stepped forward, turning a little to his right, and walked up to the foot of a large tree, where Jack had noticed a patch of sunlight; but when they got to the foot of the tree, to his astonishment and delight, the boy saw lying there a little bright red, white spotted animal, which he knew must be a calf elk. It looked a good deal like a very young fawn, but was three or four times as large. Jack was on his knees beside it in a moment, patting it and smoothing its skin, and declaring it was the prettiest thing he had ever seen. It lay there absolutely without motion, and as he lifted its legs one by one, and let them go again, they dropped back limp as if the animal were dead.
"Well, son, I don't know what we're going to do with this calf," said Hugh; "it's most too big for you to carry, and I can't pack both the calf and the bear hide. Do you want to take it with you or to leave it here?"
"Oh, Hugh," said Jack, "let's take it along; I think I can carry it, and we can't be very far from the horses now."
"No," said Hugh, "we ain't. I guess we'll manage to pack it to them, then it will be easy to get it down the hill. Do you think you could carry it? Take it right across your shoulders, holding the fore legs in one hand and the hind legs in the other. I'll lift it up for you, but I reckon it's too heavy for you to pack far."
Jack took the calf on his back, but, as Hugh had said, it was pretty heavy, and before long he had to put it down. Hugh left him there, watching the calf and the bear-skin, went on to where the horses were and brought them back. From behind his saddle he took a gunny sack, in which he put the calf, cutting a hole in the side through which its head protruded, and then tying the sack in front of Jack's saddle, and putting the bear-skin behind his own, they started for the house. When they came out on the trail where they could overlook the valley, they saw near the ranch a great herd of animals, and Hugh said, "Well, there's the horse roundup at last. Now we'll have plenty of work for the next few days, cutting out these horses and branding our own colts."
CHAPTER XVIII
WITH THE HORSE ROUNDUP
When Hugh and Jack reached the house, after putting the young elk in a calf-pen in the stable, they found a number of strangers there, and all the corrals seemed to be overflowing with horses. In one some men were still working, but when the supper horn sounded all hands came to the house.
The supper table that night was longer than it had been since Jack had been at the ranch. There were nine strange cowboys there, all of whom, however, seemed to be well acquainted with Mr. Sturgis and Hugh and Rube and Joe. Still, they were not very talkative at supper, but after it was over and they were sitting about outside the house, smoking, many stories were told of the daily happenings of the last two or three weeks while they had been gathering the horses. Jack would have enjoyed sitting about to listen to this talk, but when Hugh suggested that they should go down to the corrals and walk through the horses, he readily accompanied him. In the first pen that they entered the horses stood crowded so close together that it looked at first as if they could not push their way through them, but as they went on, the animals crowded to one side and made a narrow lane through which they could walk. Two months before, when Jack had first come to the ranch, it would have made him nervous to be so close to the heads and heels of these wild horses, but now he scarcely thought of it. Hugh looked the horses over and talked about them with the enthusiasm of a real horseman. He pointed out the beauties of this one and that, and called attention to one colt after another, telling which mare was its mother, and having some little story about each one.
One of the corrals seemed to be occupied chiefly by mares and colts, with some young horses, and of these a number of the mares seemed to recognise Hugh, and pushed their way up to him, reaching out their noses to be patted, and sometimes thrusting their heads over his shoulder. He explained to Jack that these were old horses that had been long on the place, and were accustomed to being brought up and held in the corral, where they were gentled and petted a little, and that they seemed not to forget this, and were always willing to make friends whenever they were brought up. He said, too, that their foals and yearlings and two and three-year olds, which often all followed the mother, themselves grew gentle and liked to be noticed by the men, and that, of course, animals that were tame were much more easily handled and broken to saddle or to harness than the wild colts that had been running on the range all their lives.