All that afternoon they fought their way through the rugged mountains, making camp that night in a gloomy pa.s.s at the foot of Vancouver Mountain, a vast pile that towered nearly fourteen thousand feet high.

It seemed to the Pony Rider Boys that they were a long way from civilization, and Tad admitted that he would soon be lost were he obliged to follow a trail up there.

The camp was made about six o'clock, still with broad daylight, but the boys considered that they had done enough for one day. The ponies were weary and Tad knew better than to press them too hard. After supper the freckle-faced boy shouldered his rifle.

Anvik gave him a glance of inquiry.

"Where are you going?" demanded the Professor.

"I'm going to 'mush' a little way up the pa.s.s to see if I can't get something worth while for our breakfast."

"You will get lost."

"No, that will not be possible. So long as I keep in the pa.s.s I shall be all right. Don't worry; I'll keep in the pa.s.s all right."

The boy plunged into the thick undergrowth, and no sooner had he done so than the giant mosquitoes and black gnats attacked him in force. Tad fought them until he grew tired of it, then he trudged on grimly, permitting them to do their worst. After a time he decided that he would get no game if he remained down in the pa.s.s, so, after carefully taking his bearings, Tad climbed the mountain until he was able to look over the tops of the trees. It was like a level green sea. He sat down in the sunlight, gazing out over the wonderful landscape.

"A world of silence," he murmured. "If Chunky were here he would say I was getting softening of the brain. h.e.l.lo!" Tad froze himself. There was scarcely a perceptible flicker of the eyelids as his gaze became fixed on a point of rock just across the pa.s.s. There, poised with one foot in the air, stood an antelope. It was a young doe, as Tad surmised it to be. His position was not a favorable one for shooting because he was in plain sight, and the least move on his part no doubt would be discovered by the antelope.

"She must have scented me or else she has got a whiff from the camp. If I don't make any false moves she will be over in that camp within the next hour."

Tad raised his rifle slowly. Yet slow and cautious as he was, the antelope's head went up sharply. So did Butler's rifle. He took quick aim and pulled the trigger. The report of his shot went crashing from wall to wall, like a series of heavy shots.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He Raised His Rifle Slowly.]

The freckle-faced boy leaped to his feet, and to one side, with rifle ready for another shot in case he had missed. But he had not. The antelope had leaped into the air, turned a complete somersault, and went crashing down into the gulch out of sight.

"Hooray! Maybe it was a chance shot, but it was a dandy just the same.

Now I wonder if I am going to be able to find her. I think I know how."

The boy took out his compa.s.s and got a bearing on the point where he had last seen the antelope. Noting the course he started down the mountain side, sliding and leaping in his haste. Crossing over the pa.s.s was more difficult, for a broad glacial stream was rushing through the center of it. Nothing daunted, Tad plunged in, but was swept off his feet almost instantly and carried several rods down before he was able to check himself by grabbing a rock.

The rifle had been held out of the water most of the way, though it got a pretty good wetting. The water was less swift from the rock on, and Tad essayed another crossing. He fell only once on the way over. This time he went in all over, rifle and all, but he got up grinning.

"It doesn't matter much now. I can't be any wetter, and I guess the gun isn't any the worse off, though I shall have to give it a pretty thorough cleaning and oiling when I get back to camp."

Having been thrown considerably off his course, Butler found some difficulty in picking it up again, but he found it at last, then guided by the compa.s.s made his way straight to where the antelope lay amid a thick ma.s.s of undergrowth. He examined her and found that the bullet had entered just behind the left shoulder.

"I couldn't have done any better than that at fifty yards," chuckled the boy. "The next question is, how am I going to get her to camp? I reckon I shall have to tote her."

CHAPTER XIII

A PONY RIDER BOY'S PLUCK

"White boy him make shoot," grunted Anvik.

"He has shot?" questioned Ned.

"Ugh."

"How do you know?"

"Hear um."

"You must have pretty good ears. I haven't heard anything," replied the fat boy. "How do you know it wasn't someone else?"

"Know um gun."

"It is queer we didn't hear him," said the Professor. "Do you think he got some game?"

The guide nodded.

"We shall see how good a fortune-teller you are, but the joke will be on you if it should prove not to have been Butler at all."

To this the guide made no reply. In the meantime, Tad Butler was having his troubles. The problem of how to get the antelope back to camp was not so easily solved. But Tad thought he knew a way. First he got a stick, which he sharpened at both ends. The stick, about six feet long, he thrust through slits he had made in the hocks of the animal, somewhat similar to what he would have done had he been going to string the carca.s.s up.

First strapping his rifle over his shoulder, the Pony Rider Boy raised the stick to his shoulders also, and, stooping, lifted the animal. It was a heavy burden and he staggered. The head of the antelope was dragging on the ground, which made Butler's labor still more trying.

The lad started away, keeping close to the stream in his search of a fording place, but he failed to find anything that looked easier than the portage he had used before, so he finally decided to go back to that. By the time he reached the former point he was obliged to drop his burden and sink down on the rocks to rest.

"Whew, but it's hot. And the mosquitoes and the gnats! If it isn't one pest in the wilds, it is sure to be another and a worse one," he concluded somewhat illogically, measuring the width of the stream with his eyes. "I'll try it."

The weight of his burden was a help rather than otherwise in crossing the glacial stream, for the weight kept the boy on his feet, except on one occasion when stepping on a flat, slippery rock, they were whipped out from under him. Tad went in all over, with the antelope on top of him, and there he struggled and splashed, losing his foothold almost as fast as he gained it.

"Well, I am a m.u.f.fer," gasped Tad, finally getting to his feet. "I'm worse than Chunky. I deserve a worse wetting, but I guess that's impossible."

The journey to the other side was made without further mishap. Then began a hard, grilling tramp down through the pa.s.s, the ends of the pole on which the animal was suspended continually catching on limbs and brush, frequently throwing Butler down, tearing his clothes and scratching his face and neck. His dogged determination carried him through, however, but he was in the end considerably the worse for wear.

The first his companions saw of him was when Tad fell out into the open in plain sight of the camp, flat on his face, with the carca.s.s on top of him. At first glance they thought it was a live animal they had seen.

"Get a gun, quick!" bellowed Stacy.

"Him white boy," answered the Indian. "Him git um."

"What, Tad?" Ned uttered a yell and started on a trot for his companion who, by this time, was getting up slowly and with evident effort. Stacy and Walter followed. "What have you got there? We came near letting go at you."

"Yes, yes, we thought you were a bear," chuckled Stacy.

"It's a deer," cried Walter Perkins.

"Him antelope," nodded the Indian wisely. "White boy heap much big hunter."

"I'm afraid I am a better hunter than I am a toter. Stacy, I fell in."

"Ye-e-e-ow!" yelled the fat boy joyously.