CHAPTER XXVI
TRACKING A BUFFALO
“They are all snowed under, I fear, Dick!” Roger thus remarked after they had been struggling along for some time, without seeing a living thing save some crows that flew over the tree-tops, cawing at the three palefaces as though scornfully demanding to know what they were doing so far away from their kind.
“If you mean the small animals, such as rabbits, foxes, mink and such,” Dick answered, “I suppose it is so, though in time they must work their way through the snow or die. But elk can move around still. They are broad-chested and able to bound over or break through the drifts.”
“Then why have we failed to see a single elk, or a lone buffalo?” asked Roger, as though he took it as a personal grievance.
“I can only give a guess at the answer.”
“And I’m sure it will be a good guess then, Dick, for you seem to study the habits of everything that moves, from a beaver building his dam to the antelope we coax up within gun-shot by waving a red piece of cloth. What do you think is the reason all big game is lacking about here?”
“The animals must know of some places, more favored than others,” Dick explained, “where the grass stays fairly green throughout the winter. Snows may come and melt, and the cold waves be tempered by hot springs every little while.”
“Then I wish we could run across another of those boiling springs before it gets dark, and find a herd of elk hanging around it,” and Roger undoubtedly meant every word he spoke.
As the day had been pretty well along when they managed to break out of their snow prison they could not hope, before night, to get any great distance on the way to the big lake.