"Give us a grip of your paw, old fellow!" cried Bluff, rushing up, brimming over with enthusiasm and admiration. "I'll sure never forget that sight! And he did the Rod, Gun and Camera Club proud when he used your weapon, didn't he, Mr. Mabie?"
"I knew he would," was the quiet remark of the stockman; and Frank understood that the other had been forming a favorable opinion of the chums from the minute he saw them come off the train.
"Would you like that skin to remember the event by, Jerry?" Mr. Mabie asked, a little later, while they were watching the cowboys remove the hide.
"It would give my mother a cold chill to see it, if she ever heard the story; but then we have a clubroom over our boathouse, and I guess it would look nice there. So, since you are so kind as to offer it, I'll say yes, Mr. Mabie."
"Well, I should remark that we'd never forgive you if you let that chance slip. It looks as though our big-game trip might pan out something worth while, after all," observed Bluff.
"You do everything on a big scale out here
in the Northwest, sir. The fields of wheat are tremendous, the distances immense, the mountains higher than any in the East, by long odds; and the game the biggest in the whole country," remarked Frank.
"And in this bracing air we hope to raise the finest crop of boys in the world. But let's return to the house, lads. It's time we had a bite, for I'm sure your appetites must be sharpened by this little adventure."
The ranchman cast many a secret admiring glance toward Jerry as they rode home. He fell back with Frank on purpose to speak his mind, while the other three galloped on ahead, laughing and shouting, as boys off on a vacation always do.
"I like that chap, Jerry," he remarked earnestly. "He's a lad after my own heart. What he said about not wanting to shoot defenceless game gave me a wrench, for we cherish notions along that same line up here in the wilderness. Of course, the grizzly, as I said, does not come under that law, for he's too terrible a customer to be given much rope."