"If we're going into the mountains, son," said Hugh, "there is a good road into them not far from here. I don't know what game we'll find. Very likely nothing, except a few deer, or possibly, if we get up high enough, a sheep or two, but anyhow I mind that it's a pretty country on the Michigan, and we might as well go up there as anywhere else."
"I would like to do it, Hugh, and if you say so, we will."
"Let it be so," said Hugh. "Now, son," he continued, "down here in the park is one of the greatest summer ranges for antelope that ever was, but we've got meat enough to do us for a few days, now, and unless you see something extraordinary in the way of a head, it seems to me I wouldn't bother with these antelope."
"No," said Jack, "I don't think it's worth while to, and I don't mean to. The only reason for shooting at them now would be to see whether I could hit them, and if I want to find out about that I can stick a chip up against a tree and shoot at it."
"That's right," said Hugh. "Of course, if you need an animal, kill it, but don't kill it just to gratify your curiosity or your love for hitting things."
After an early start next morning a hunter's trail was followed up toward the mountains. The way led through dense pine forests alternating with pretty, park-like openings, and some miles nearer to the main range they camped by some little springs. As Hugh had said, the antelope here were extremely abundant and very tame. In the timber there were many signs of deer, occasionally a snowshoe rabbit was seen, and more than one brood of blue grouse was startled from its feeding ground among the low brush. The young were about the size of quail, and after being flushed the first time lay very hard. Jack amused himself several times by getting off and walking in the direction which the birds had taken, and then finding them, one after another, crouched close to the ground, looking almost like so many stones or sticks and permitting him to come quite near to them before again taking wing.
The timber on the Michigan was burning in several places, but the rains of the past few days had for the most part extinguished the flames. Now only a few smoldering logs sent up their pillars of smoke through the still, clear air. In some places the fire had run down the mountains out onto the plain, burning the sage brush and sometimes even crossing the creek bottom, killing the willows which everywhere grew very thickly. In one place, as Jack was riding down the bluffs into the brush, a large bob-cat or bay lynx ran out from the bushes, stopped and stared at him when it saw him, but before he could draw his rifle from the scabbard it bounded back into the willows and was not seen again.
They had some trouble in crossing the Michigan where it came out from the mountains. The bottom was wide and level, and was full of old beaver meadows and ditches. Everywhere it was so thickly overgrown with willows that it was with difficulty that the horses could be forced through them. At every few steps they came upon mud holes, beaver sloughs, and other evidences of old beaver ponds, and it was necessary to wind about to avoid these obstacles. There are few things more troublesome and even dangerous than to ride through an old beaver meadow, for if one's horse gets fairly mired in a beaver slough it may be very difficult to get him out again.
Hugh and Jack spent more than two hours in crossing from one bank to the other, though the distance was only about half a mile.