“Go back and get our breakfast,” answered Dick, promptly, as though he had been making up his mind while they hunted for the tracks; “then, if he doesn’t show up, we can load the stuff on both our horses, and start out.”
“But that would be a pretty uncomfortable way of doing, I’d say,” objected Roger, who did not like the thought of riding perched on top of the folded tent, and with all manner of other things around him.
“Oh! I don’t mean to try it long,” the other hastened to reply. “You see, it happens that the trail leads up-river, so we could keep on following it, and not leave our stuff unprotected. Then, if we found Peter, it would be all right; and, on the other hand, if we didn’t, and had to give him up, I’ve a notion we’d better get rid of a few things like the tent, and go on our journey lighter.”
“It is pretty old, for a fact, and clumsy, too. When that Indian brave sold the tent to us, he played a smart trick, for the skins had been exposed so long to sun and rain and wind that they were getting weak. I won’t be sorry to see the old affair kicked out. We’re used to sleeping on the ground, and if it rains we can make a shelter out of branches, or find a hole in the rocks.”
“Perhaps a hollow tree,” added Dick, laughingly, as they turned back toward camp.
“Oh, well, in that case we’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen to be the den of a bear,” observed the other. “Every time I think of that fellow about to drop down on us, it gives me the shivers.”
On reaching the camp they hurried preparations for breakfast. It was always a simple meal, consisting of some meat or fish, cooked over the small fire they had burning, and a dish of tea, of which both boys happened to be very fond. Coffee in those early days was almost an unknown luxury among the Western pioneers along the Missouri.
When they had partaken of this frugal but satisfying meal, the boys started to take down the skin tent which had been the subject of Roger’s remarks. It was an old Indian lodge, and, while the figures of animals and hunting scenes that once decorated its sides were pretty well faded, enough remained to interest the boys from time to time, and cause more or less speculation as to what they were intended to represent.
After they had managed to load all their possessions on the backs of the two riding horses, much to the surprise of the animals, they said good-by to their night’s camp, and once more started off, heading into the northwest, and following the river.