"Bad," replied Jack. "I got quite close to a bear, and, not expecting any game, I made a little noise and he dodged off, giving me only a glimpse, at which I didn't have time to fire."
"That's bad," said Hugh. "A man always feels worse if he knows that it was through some carelessness of his own that he missed a chance."
"Yes," said Jack, "that's what I was thinking only a little while ago. If I had done my best, and the wind had changed, or something had frightened the bear, I wouldn't mind it so much. What did you see, Hugh?"
"Well," said Hugh, "I found some beaver, and I saw a little bunch of cow elk. I expect there are calves hidden in the valley just above us, but they don't interest us much."
"No," said Jack, "we don't need any calf elk, certainly."
"I think, son," said Hugh, "we'd better stop here for a day or so and set some traps. We may get a few beaver, and there are some mink here, too."
"All right," said Jack; "I'll go you; but we haven't time to set the traps to-night, have we?"
"No," said Hugh, "we'll have to wait until to-morrow for that, but I'll tell you what we can do. We can start in to rigging our dead-falls for mink to-night. It'll take us some little time to fix them. We ought to have at least a half a dozen of them scattered up and down the creek here."
"Well," said Jack, "what do you want me to do? I'm ready for anything."
"Get the ax," said Hugh, "and we'll go up on the hillside and cut down some of these small, dead pines and get them ready for work to-morrow."