CHAPTER XV.
THE MAMMOTH’S TUSKS.
Sure enough, the camp was awakened at an early hour the next day by a couple of rifle shots, and an excited commotion among the Indians. The boys in whom, as in all healthy American youths, the hunting instinct was strong, at once scrambled from under their blankets, seized their rifles and dashed through the bushes toward the small stream which flowed from the mountains toward an arm of Prince William Sound.
A dozen rods from the camp, they came upon the guide and the Indians standing around a large bull caribou whose head boasted a magnificent pair of antlers. The animal’s throat had been cut and the Indians had already set to work to take off the hide.
“Got him the first shot,” said the guide, “and tried to get another, but they was too swift fer me. They was six in the herd. However, this is enough, and the poor things is bein’ killed off fast enough fer their hides and horns without our takin’ more’n we need.”
“Why didn’t you call us?” asked Jack, “I should like to have got a shot at some big game before we leave Alaska.”
“Fer that very reason,” replied the guide, “it’s the close season now, and we can only kill what we need for meat. Besides that, it’s ticklish business gettin’ a shot at caribou, and two persons would have made more noise than one, and I wanted very much to get one or two fer these Indians, who need it, as I told you. Hurry up there, you Siwash, and get yer meat and have yer feast fer we’ve got to be movin’.”
“What a handsome pair of antlers,” said Rand, who was something of a naturalist.
“Best head I ever see,” said the guide. “I’d be glad to make ye a present of it if there was any chance of yer gettin’ it out of Alaska at this season. However, we’ll take it back to Seward and maybe Colonel Snow can find some way to do it.”