Jack stepped out on the open hillside and whooped, and, when the strangers looked at him, waved his hat, and father and son started towards them, while Jack went back to resume his work.
Presently the two Englishmen came up to where they were, panting a little from the exertion of the climb. The son had his eyes fast on the beaver and the skinning, but his father, as soon as he reached the place, turned about and looked up and down the valley and across at the opposite mountains.
"An extraordinarily beautiful spot you've chosen for your work," he said to Hugh, and Hugh nodded without speaking. And, indeed, it was a lovely place. Opposite, the mountainside rose steeply, clothed with dark green timber to its crest. Away to the northeast lay the valley of the stream, with little parks and openings through which flowed the shining waters, amid groves of pale aspens, which, as the valley met the hillside, changed to dark pines. Up the valley the view was cut off by the hills, but where the company was gathered there was bright sunshine, and a lovely view.
"Are those beavers?" said Mr. Clifford, pointing to the animals that lay on the ground. "My son told me that you were trapping, and we came over to see what your success had been."
"Yes," said Hugh, "those are beaver, and this is a part of the work of getting them."
"How very interesting," said Mr. Clifford. "But, is not the work very hard?"
"Well," said Hugh, "that depends a little on how you look at it. Work that a man is used to does not seem hard to him, while a new job may seem very hard."
"True, true," said Mr. Clifford. "But I think the work of skinning these animals, to say nothing of trapping them and bringing them to this place, would seem to me very difficult."
"That is what Jack thought for the first two or three days that we were at work, but he's got so used to it now that he can skin a beaver pretty nearly as fast as I, and I don't think he minds the work nearly as much as he did."