CHAPTER XXIII.
HUNTING THE BIG-HORN.
Oscar slept soundly that night, in spite of the roaring of the wind and the howling of the wolves, and awoke at daylight to find breakfast waiting for him. A glance out at the door showed him that the storm had ceased. The weather was clear and cold, and the snow covered the ground to the depth of six inches.
“Just deep enough for tracking,” Oscar remarked, as he gave his hands and face a thorough washing in it.
Of course the first thing on the programme was a hunt.
That was what the boy came out there for, and he was anxious to begin operations at once.
He longed to bring down one of the big-horns he had seen watching him at his work, and to knock over one of the lordly elk that had scurried away with such haste when he and Big Thompson kindled their first camp-fire in the valley.
So very impatient was he that the breakfast the guide had so carefully prepared did not delay him more than five minutes.
He did not sit down to the table at all, but swallowed his coffee scalding hot, and walked up and down the cabin, buckling on his accoutrements with one hand, while he had his venison and cracker in the other.
The guide was more deliberate in his movements. He was almost too deliberate, Oscar thought.
After he had fully satisfied his appetite, he put away the dishes, slowly filled and lighted his pipe; and, not until he had set the cabin in order did he take his rifle down from the pegs on which it rested, and sling on his powderhorn and bullet-pouch.