"Quite a bunch of fur for the traps we set," said Hugh, as they returned to camp.
As they passed the camp of the Englishmen, the packer was seen building a fire, having apparently just gotten up, but the Englishman and his son had not yet arisen, and Jack called out to the packer, asking him to tell Henry Clifford to come over to their camp after he had finished breakfast, and a muffled call from the inside of the tent showed that the boy had heard the message.
A moment later he was seen peering out of the tent door, and staring with greatest intentness at the pack horse and its load of fur-bearing animals.
Hugh and Jack returned to their camp, but when they reached it, Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, if we're going to stay here three or four days, we don't want to litter up this camp with a lot of carcasses. Let's go off back into the timber a little way, and do our skinning there instead of doing it in the camp."
"I think so, too, Hugh," answered Jack. "It'll be a great deal more comfortable for us, and it's really no more trouble to go up there a short distance than to dump the load out here."
"All right," said Hugh, "we'll go up there, and we can choose a place from which we can see camp, and then if that young Englishman comes over, you can call him up to where we are, if he wants to see what we're doing."
Accordingly, they got their skinning knives and whetstones, and, going up the side of the valley, sat down on the hillside just within the pine timber. Both the camps were in sight from there.
They were both hard at work, each one on his first beaver, when Jack happened to look down toward the camp and saw the English boy and his father standing in front of the tent and gazing around as if looking for the owners of the camp.
"There are our friends down in camp, Hugh," said Jack.
"Well," said Hugh, "call them up here if you want to, or, at all events, let them see where we are, and then they can come if they feel like it."