Big Thompson was coming with all possible haste, but he could not scale the bluff as easily as the sheep did, and it was fully ten minutes before he reached the plateau.
Those ten minutes were occupied by Oscar in dragging his game together, and securing the head of the big-horn that had been killed by the wolves.
The guide reached the top at last, and his countenance indicated that he was not a little astonished at what he saw before him.
Leaning on his rifle, he looked first at the game, then at the young hunter, and finally he advanced and shook hands with him.
He was so nearly out of breath that he could not congratulate him upon his success in any other way.
In a few hurried words Oscar told what he had done since parting from Big Thompson three hours before, dwelling with a good deal of enthusiasm upon the courage displayed by the sheep in attacking the wolves, and winding up with the remark that he had no idea that so timid an animal could make so gallant a fight.
“Wal,” replied Big Thompson, who had by this time recovered a little of his breath, “they aint by no means as skeery as ye think. It’s a fact that they’ll ginerally run like the wind if they see a man or get a sniff of him, but they don’t mind facin’ any varmints they ketch on their feedin’-grounds. If you should happen to get one of ’em cornered, he’d double ye up quicker’n ye could say ‘Gineral Jackson.’ I knowed a feller onct who was larruped by an old doe whose lamb he wanted for his dinner, an’ that thar feller was jest my size, an’ they called him Big Thompson.”
“I never heard of such a thing before,” said Oscar, who had always believed that nothing inferior in strength to a bear or panther could get the better of his stalwart guide. “Tell us all about it.”
“That’s all thar is to tell. I plumped the lamb over fust; an’ the doe, she run off. After follerin’ her fur half a mile I found her ag’in, and knocked her over, too; but I didn’t kill her. When I went to take her by the horns she jumped up an’ give me a whack that laid me out flatter’n a slap-jack. When I kinder come to myself, about an hour afterward, I found her standin’ over her lamb; an’ that time I made sure work of her. Now, perfessor, what be ye goin’ to do next?”
“I want to get this game to the camp with as little delay as possible,” answered Oscar. “I have a good deal of work before me, and I can do it now easier than I can after the specimens are frozen. But how are we going to get them to the cabin? Why, those sheep must weigh two or three hundred pounds apiece.”