Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

They crept forward on hands and knees, and not until they had reached the very crown of the hill did they raise their heads. Then they saw the wished-for game, two fine mule deer bucks, busily feeding on the green grass that grew near the stream. They were graceful creatures, one of them much larger than the other and with a fine head of horns; the other had small horns and was evidently young. Their ears were very large, and their tails, which were white, all except a black tip, were constantly in motion. Both deer stood broadside on; the larger one somewhat in advance of the other.

"You shoot first," said Hugh. "Take the big one, and remember, hold low."

Jack put his rifle to his shoulder, feeling as cool and steady as ever he did in his life, and aiming just behind the big buck's elbow, fired, and the deer dropped in his tracks. The little fellow made one or two jumps, and then stood looking, when Hugh's ball pierced his breast, and he too fell to the ground.

"Well," said Hugh, "that's a good job, son. If I'd thought we were going to get meat so quick, I'd a fetched a pack horse along, but I didn't much think we would. So I'll go down and butcher them deer, and you go back to camp and put a pack saddle on one of the pack horses and fetch it over here. Mind you take the saddle and the blanket and the lash rope that goes together; don't mix up the riggings. You'd better bring the pack horse you led; it hasn't had nothing to do all day except to pack its saddle, and it might as well work for its grub now. You can't see the camp from here, but I don't expect there's any danger of your losing your way. You know we crossed four of these gulches coming, and when you get to the fifth you want to turn to your right and follow up the creek, and soon you'll come in sight of the camp. Keep the sun on your right hand all the time. Do you think you can do it?"

"Oh, I guess so, Hugh," said Jack; "now that you've told me how many ravines we crossed; I didn't notice, myself, I only knew we'd crossed a number of them."

"Well," said Hugh, "you've got to learn to take notice of just them things, if you're going to be a prairie man. Now mind, if you should not be able to find your way to camp, and think you're lost, don't keep on travelling; just climb up to the top of the nearest hill and set there, and before night you'll see or hear me. But I don't expect but what you'll find your way back to camp all right."

Hugh went on downhill toward the deer, and Jack set out on his return to camp. He kept count of the ravines as he crossed them, and when he came to the fifth, looked around to see if there was anything there that he could recognise. It all looked strange to him, but he turned to his right and followed the stream up, and, before he had gone very far, he noticed a clump of willows that he remembered they had passed soon after leaving camp. A few steps beyond this a grove of trees appeared, and a moment later he saw the horses. "Now, the question is," he said to himself, as he hurried toward camp, "can I find my way back to Hugh? I'll try hard, anyhow."

He loosened the pack horse from its picket pin, led it to the saddles, and choosing the right rigging, saddled the animal and tied the lash rope to the saddle. It was the first time he had ever put a pack saddle on a horse, and he did not feel sure that he had done it right, but he spent little time over it, thinking that the important thing now was to get the horse to Hugh, so that they could bring their meat to camp before the sun set. He found his way back without difficulty to the place they had shot from, and from there saw Hugh, who had finished butchering, smoking his pipe by the two carcasses. When Jack reached him, Hugh said, "Well, you didn't have no trouble, did you?"

"Not a bit," said Jack. "I'd a notion at one time that maybe I was lost, for the ravine that we came down looked strange to me on my way back, but I followed it up and got to camp all right."

"Well," said Hugh, "it's a mighty good plan, when you're going along in a strange country, to stop every now and then and take a look behind you, and see how the country looks after you pass through it. Of course as you go along you see how things look ahead of you, but sometimes they look mighty different from the other side. I'd ought to have spoken to you about that before. Say," he continued, as he rose to his feet and looked at the pack horse, "who saddled that horse?"