Now he was lost. Lost merely in so far as he did not know where he was; not that he need worry about being able to retrace his steps. He had provisions, ammunition, fishing tackle, bedding; was in a corner of the world where men did not frequently come, and could stay here the whole summer if he saw fit. He had been hunting gold all the years of his life, it seemed to him. What had it brought him? What good had it done him? Never was man in better mood to be lost than was John Sheldon as he knocked out his pipe, rolled into his blankets, and went to sleep.
Now, the sixth day out he watched his way warily. If he were not already in the Sasnokee-keewan, he should to-day, or by to-morrow noon at the latest, come to the first of the Nine Lakes. He had studied the stars last night; he had watched the sun to-day. It was guesswork at best, since he had had no thought to prick his way by map.
Night came again, and he looked from a ridge down upon other ridges, some bare and granite-topped, some timbered, with here and there a tall peak looking out across the broken miles, with no hint of Lake Nopong. He made his way down a long slope in the thickening dusk, seeking a grassy spot to tether his packhorse. That night the animal crunched sunflower leaves and the tenderer shoots of the mountain bushes. With the dawn Sheldon again pushed on, seeking better pasture.
Late that afternoon he came into a delightfully green meadow, where a raging creek grew suddenly gentle and wandered through crisp herbage and little white flowers. There was a confusion of deer-tracks where a narrow trail slipped through the alders of the creek banks. Upon the rim of the meadow was a great log freshly torn into bits, as though by the great paws of a bear.
Under a tall, isolated cedar about whose base there was dry ground, Sheldon removed the canvas-rolled pack and the pack-saddle, turning his horse into an alder-surrounded arm of the meadow where the grass was thickest and tallest. While the sun was still high he cut the branches which he would throw his blankets upon, fried his bacon and potatoes, boiled his coffee, and ate heartily.
Then he sat upon the log at which the bear had torn, saw the tracks and nodded over them, noting that they were only a few days old—smoked his pipe, and out of the fulness of content watched his hungry horse ripping away at the lush grass.
“Take your time, Buck, old boy,” he said gently. “We’ll stay right here until you get a bellyful. We don’t have to move on until snow flies, if we don’t want to. I think that this is one of the spots of the world we’ve been looking for a long time. I’d lay a man a bet, two to one and he names the stakes, that there’s not another human being in three days’ walk.”
And a very little after sunset, with the same thought soothing him, he went to sleep.
CHAPTER II. BONES.
The seventh day out Sheldon began in practical manner by shaving. His beard was beginning to turn in and itch. And, even upon trips like this, he had yet to understand why a fellow shouldn’t include in his pack the razor, brush, and soap, which, altogether, occupied no more space than a pocket tin of tobacco.