When a little time had passed Dick began to grow somewhat anxious. He wondered if any harm could have come to Roger, or was the other trying to get to the fallen sheep that had slipped into a crevice among the rocks?
Finally Dick could stand it no longer. He decided to secure the two horses somewhere and follow the route Roger had taken. Once up above, he ought to be able to get some news of the missing one.
He was soon climbing up the face of the rocky mountain. It was no easy task, and that Roger had accomplished it without alarming the quarry was greatly to his credit. Still, there was no sign of him whom Dick wanted to see.
Dick, with the eye of a born hunter, found it easy to figure out just how Roger had proceeded. He did this by putting himself in the place of the other, and arranging his own plan of campaign.
Now and then he came across signs that told him he was on the right track. Once it was a bruised weed, which Roger must have crushed under his foot; then again it would turn out to be a piece of loose stone that he could see had only recently been cast adrift from its former anchorage.
Little things like this, that might pass unnoticed by any one not a woodsman, were to this pioneer boy as the printed words on a page to one who attends school. They told him the story just as positively as though with his own eyes he saw Roger creeping along over that very spot, taking advantage of this protruding knob to place his foot upon it, and using that stubby bush to draw himself up to some new hold above.
By degrees Dick pushed on. He knew he must be getting very close to where the other had been when he fired the fatal shot, and still he saw no signs of Roger.
When he finally arrived at a place where further progress was impossible, without disclosing himself to the eyes of the sheep, provided they still grazed there on the grassy slope beyond, Dick knew he had reached the spot where his chum must have lain as he took careful aim and pressed the trigger.
Then afterwards he must have pressed on, seeking to reach the bighorn, fallen into the crevice.