One of the big-horns was then placed on the drag and the guide started with it for the cabin, leaving Oscar to protect the rest from any hungry beast which might chance to pass that way.
The guide was obliged to make four trips between the gorge and the camp, and, as it was no easy work to haul the drag and its heavy burdens through the snow, two hours more were consumed, so that it was near the middle of the afternoon before Oscar saw his specimens safely housed.
After full justice had been done to the cutlets, which, under Big Thompson’s supervision, were cooked to perfection, Oscar set to work upon one of the sheep, while the guide sat by, smoking his pipe and watching all his movements with the keenest interest.
At midnight Oscar was tired enough to go to bed. He slept soundly until eight o’clock the next morning; and then awoke, to find that the fire had nearly gone out, that the breakfast that had been prepared for him was cold, and that the guide was missing.
“He’s gone out to set some of his traps,” said Oscar to himself, as he drew on his boots and went out to get an armful of wood from the pile in front of the cabin. “He told me last night that that was what he was going to do to-day. Well, I have three or four hours more of hard work before me; and, when it is done, I’ll take a stroll down the valley and see what I can find to shoot at.”
In a very few minutes the fire was burning brightly; and, after he had washed his hands and face, and brushed his hair in front of a small mirror that hung on the wall (he never neglected such little things as these simply because he was a hunter, and a hundred miles away from everybody except his guide), Oscar placed the coffee-pot and frying-pan on the coals, and laid the table for his breakfast.
He had brought with him a good many things in the way of supplies that Big Thompson had never seen in a hunter’s camp before, such as condensed milk, pressed tea, sugar, self-leavening flour, canned fruits, pickles, onions, beans, and desiccated potatoes.
It was just as easy, he thought, to live well, even in that remote region, as it was to keep himself neat in appearance; and he intended to do both.
Having eaten a hearty breakfast and set things in order in the cabin, Oscar resumed work upon his specimens; and, by twelve o’clock, the skins of the sheep, as well as those of the wolves, were packed snugly away in one corner, surmounted by the horns he intended to present to his friend, Sam Hynes.
This done, he buckled on his cartridge-belt, thrust a hatchet into it, and, taking his rifle down from its place over the door, set out for a hunt by himself.