Before deciding on his course, he stopped to see which way the wind was blowing. On glancing at the boughs of the evergreens behind the cabin, he observed that they hung motionless; there did not seem to be a breath of air stirring; but the boy, knowing that there is always more or less motion in the atmosphere, took a hunter’s way of finding out which direction the breeze came from.
This he did by moistening his finger in his mouth and holding it above his head. The back of his finger was toward the upper end of the valley; and, as it grew cold almost instantly, Oscar knew that what little wind there was, came from the mountains. He knew, too, that experienced hunters, while seeking for game, always travel against the wind; so, without further hesitation, he shouldered his rifle and started up the valley.
“The elk we saw on the day we arrived here went in this direction,” thought he, as he trudged along, keeping just in the edge of the timbers for concealment; “and who knows but I may be lucky enough to find them again? If I could get a fair shot at the old buck that carries those splendid antlers, I should have a prize indeed!”
Oscar worked his way cautiously through the woods, stopping now and then behind a convenient tree to take a survey of the valley before him, but not a living thing could he see.
All the game-animals seemed to have taken themselves off to a safer neighborhood; but that some of them had recently been about there was made apparent to Oscar before he had gone two miles from the cabin.
All of a sudden, while his thoughts were wandering far away from the valley, across the snow-covered prairie to the little village of Eaton and the friends he had left there, he came upon the place where a couple of deer had passed the preceding night.
He knew there were two of them, a large and a small one, for he could see the prints made by their bodies in the snow when they lay down to sleep.
He was satisfied, also, that they had left their beds that morning, for the appearance of the tracks that led to and from the thicket in which they had passed the night, told him so.
It had thawed just enough the day before to melt the top of the snow, and during the night it had frozen hard enough to form a thick crust over it.
The bottom of the tracks that led into the thicket was covered with this crust, while in those that led out of it the snow was soft to the touch.