"Well," Tom observed, "he said he had rubbed them all over with bear's grease, and rolled them up in a leather cover, before he hid them away; so he expected they'd keep in fair shape many years. We'll have to take our chances on that. It wasn't the hope of making anything at trapping that fetched us away up here, you know. That's only a little side issue, you might say, just to see if we've learned anything about the game."
"One thing sure, Tom, this region doesn't seem to be overrun with settlers, seeing that we haven't met a solitary soul these three days; while game seems fairly plentiful, because we sighted seven black-tailed deer on the way, and had a peep at some bighorn sheep yesterday away up on the mountain."
"I've seen no sign of any one around but they told us below that once in a while some Indian was known to be in this part of the country, doing his winter's trapping. And you remember, they said that if we happened to run across an old Shoshone chief, who now goes by the name of Charley Crow, and who sometimes acts as guide for Eastern sportsmen, we ought to cultivate his acquaintance, because he has the reputation of being the straightest redskin in the whole State of Wyoming."
"I remember that they said he was really a halfbreed," remarked Felix; "but his wife is a full blood. Perhaps we may happen to run across the old fellow while we're up here. I'd like to meet him, wouldn't you, Tom?"
"Well, I don't know," replied the other, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, on which the big pack seemed to rest so easily in comparison with the way that of Felix gave him trouble; "I must say, that so far I've never run across an Injun I'd care much to cultivate. They're not what they used to be. The white man's whisky has changed them terribly. In the old days they never worked, only hunted; and went to war; while the squaws did all the drudgery in camp. And now, as a rule, they are just satisfied to loaf their lives away, fed by the bounty of the White Father at Washington—gambling and drinking, and doing a little stealing, when everything else fails them."
"But on the reservations many of them farm, and I understand with success, too," remonstrated Felix.
"Oh, sure, that must be a fact," admitted Tom, readily enough, "though I've never seen it; but others have told me that many of the braves have taken to farming, and are doing well. I was only speaking of the Injuns who wouldn't change their way of living. But Felix, take a look at that monster tree over there. Seems to me that answers the description Old Sol gives of the big one overhanging his hidden dugout."
Felix heaved a sigh of relief, as with one hand he mopped his forehead, using a red bandana handkerchief which he wore knotted around his neck in true cowboy fashion; for despite the coolness of the day, the labor had heated him up considerably.
"I hope so, Tom," he remarked, trying to act as though after all it was not such a vital matter whether or not they came upon the shack that day or the next; but all the same his eyes eagerly sought the vicinity of the big tree, and he was trying to make out something vaguely resembling the shape of a rough dugout near its base.
They kept on advancing, and Tom suddenly gave utterance to an exclamation of intense satisfaction.