Harry's eyes twinkled as he glanced at his father's pipe.
"One of them hasn't much effect on him. I don't know whether I told you about the bag the two sports who were round here last fall nearly made. I got the tale from Webster on the next ranch."
Frank said that he would like to hear it, and Harry laughed.
"Well," he began, "Webster was sitting on a log in the bush just outside his slashing, looking around kind of sorrowful at the trees. It seemed to him they looked so big and nice it would be a pity to spoil them. When I've been chopping until my hands are sore I sometimes feel like that."
"It doesn't lead to riches," interrupted his father dryly.
"By and by," Harry continued, "Webster heard a smashing in the underbrush. It kept coming nearer, but it wasn't in the least like the sound a bear makes or a jumping deer. You don't know they're around unless they're badly scared. Anyway, Webster sat still wondering what it could be, until he saw a man crawling on the ground. He was coming along very cautiously, but you couldn't have heard him more than half a mile away. By and by he disappeared behind a big tree, and as there hadn't been a deer about for a week Webster wondered if the man was mad, until there was a blaze of repeater firing in the bush. Then Fremont, his logging ox, came out of it like a locomotive and headed for the range so fast that Webster couldn't see how he went. He grabbed his logging handspike, and found a sport abusing another for missing in the bush.
"'What in the name of wonder are you after?' he asked.
"'We've been trailing a deer two hours,' one of them declared. 'A mighty big deer. Must have been an elk.'
"'An elk, sure. I saw it,' added the other.
"'There isn't a blamed elk in the country,' said Webster.