CHAPTER TEN.

A SURE-FOOTED BEAST.

An early start was made next morning, and following the course mapped out by the Doctor, they soon reached an opening in the hills, up which they turned, to find in the hollow a thread-like stream and that, as they proceeded, the mountains began to open out before them higher and higher, till they seemed to close in the horizon like clouds of delicate amethystine blue.

Every now and then the travelling was so bad that it seemed as if they must return, but somehow the waggon and horses were got over the obstacles, and a short level cheered them on to fresh exertions, while, as they slowly climbed higher and higher, there was the satisfaction of knowing that there was less likelihood of molestation from Indians, the dangerous tribes of the plains, Comanches and Apaches, rarely taking their horses up amongst the rugged portions of the hills.

Maude, in her girlish freshness of heart, was delighted with the variety of scenery, while to Bart all was excitement. Even the labour to extricate the waggon from some rift, or to help to drag it up some tremendous slope, was enjoyable.

Then there were little excursions to make down moist ravines, where an antelope might be bagged for the larder; or up to some dry-looking flat, shut in by the hills, where grouse might be put up amongst the sage-brush and other thin growth, for six hard-working men out in these brisk lat.i.tudes consume a great deal of food, and the stores in the waggon had to be saved as much a possible.

One way and the other the larder was kept well supplied, and while Dr Lascelles on the one hand talked eagerly of the precious metal he hoped to discover, Joses was always ready with promises of endless sport.

"Why, by an' by, Master Bart," he said one day as they journeyed slowly on, "we shall come to rivers so full of salmon that all you've got to do is to pull 'em out."

"If you can catch them," said Bart, laughing.

"Catch 'em, my boy? Why, they don't want no catching. I've known 'em come up some rivers so quick and fast that when they got up to the shallows they shoved one another out on to the sides high and dry, and all you'd got to do was to catch 'em and eat 'em."

"Let's see, that's what the Doctor calls a traveller's tale, Joses."

"Yes; this traveller's tale," said Bart's companion gruffly. "You needn't believe it without you like, but it's true all the same."

"Well, I'll try and believe it," said Bart, laughing, "but I didn't know salmon were so stupid as that."

"Stupid! they aren't stupid, my lad," replied Joses sharply. "Suppose you and millions of people behind you were walking along a narrow bit o'

land with a river on each side of you, and everybody was pushing on from behind to get up to the end of the bit of land, where there wasn't room for you all, and suppose you and hundreds more got pushed into the water on one side or on the other, that wouldn't be because you were so very stupid, would it?"

"No," said Bart, "that would be because I couldn't help it."

"Well, it's just the same with the salmon, my lad. Millions of 'em come up from out of the sea at sp.a.w.ning time, and they swim up and up till the rivers get narrower and shallower, and all those behind keep pushing the first ones on till thousands die on the banks, and get eaten by the wolves and _coyotes_ that come down then to the banks along with eagles and hawks and birds like them."

"I beg your pardon, Joses, for not believing you," said Bart, earnestly.

"I see now."

"Oh, it's all right enough," said the rough fellow bluntly. "I shouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it, and of course it's only up the little shallow streams that shoot off from the others."

This conversation took place some days after they had been in the mountains, gradually climbing higher, and getting glorious views at times, of hill and distant plain. Bart and Joses were out "after the pot," as the latter called it, and on this occasion they had been very unfortunate.

"I tell you what it is," said Joses at last, "we shall have to go lower down. The master won't never find no gold and silver up here, and food'll get scarcer and scarcer, unless we can come upon a flock of sheep."

"A flock of sheep up here!" said Bart incredulously.

"I didn't say salmon, I said sheep," grunted Joses. "Now, say you don't believe there is sheep up here."

"You tell me there are sheep up here," said Bart, "and I will believe you."

"I don't say there are; I only hope there are," said Joses; "for if we could get one or two o' them in good condition, they're the best eating of anything as goes on four legs."

"But not our sort of sheep?"

"No, of course not. Mountain sheep, my lad, with great horns twisted round so long and thick you get wondering how the sheep can carry 'em, and--there, look!"

He caught Bart by the shoulder, and pointed to a tremendous slope, a quarter of a mile away, where, in the clear pure air, the lad could see a flock of about twenty sheep evidently watching them.

"They're the shyest, artfullest things as ever was," whispered Joses.

"Down softly, and let's back away; we must circ.u.mvent them, and get behind 'em for a shot."

"Too late," said Bart; and he was right, for suddenly the whole herd went off at a tremendous pace along a slope that seemed to be quite a precipice, and the next moment they were gone.

"That's up for to-day," said Joses, shouldering his rifle. "We may go back and try and pick up a bird or two. To-morrow we'll come strong, and p'r'aps get a shot at the sheep, as we know they are here."

They were fortunate enough to shoot a few grouse on their way back, and next morning at daybreak, Bart and the four men started after the sheep, the Doctor preferring to stay by the waggon and examine some of the rocks.

As the party climbed upwards towards the slope where the sheep had been seen on the previous day, Joses was full of stories about the shy nature of these animals.

"They'll lead you right away into the wildest places," he said, "and then, when you think you've got them, they go over some steep cut, and you never see 'em again. Some people say they jump head first down on to the rocks, and lets themselves fall on their horns, which is made big on purpose, and then bounces up again, but I don't believe it, for if they did, they'd break their necks. All the same, though, they do jump down some wonderful steep places and run up others that look like walls.

Here, what's Sam making signals for! Go softly."

They crept up to their companion, and found that he had sighted a flock of eleven sheep on a slope quite a couple of miles away, and but for the a.s.surance of Joses that it was all right, and that they were sheep, Bart would have said it was a patch of a light colour on the mountain.

As they approached cautiously, however, trying to stalk the timid creatures, Bart found that his men were right, and they spent the next two hours in cautious approach, till they saw that the sheep took alarm and rushed up to the top of the slope, disappeared for a moment, and then came back, to stand staring down at their advancing enemies.

"It's all right," exclaimed Joses, "we can get the lot if we like, for they can't get away. Yonder's a regular dip down where they can't jump.

Keep your rifles ready, my boys, and we'll shoot two. That'll be enough."

As they spread out and slowly advanced, the sheep ran back out of sight, but came back again, proving Joses' words, that there was a precipice beyond them and their enemies in front.

Four times over, as the hunting party advanced, did the sheep perform this evolution, but the last time they did not come back into sight.

"They're away hiding down among the bushes," said Joses. "Be ready.

Now then close in. You keep in the middle here, Master Bart, and have the first shot. Pick a good fat one."

"Yes," panted Bart, who was out of breath with the climbing, and to rest him Joses called a halt, keeping a sharp look-out the while to left and right, so that the sheep might not elude them.

At the end of a few minutes they toiled up the slope once more, Joses uttering a few words of warning to his young companion.

"Don't rush when you get to the top, for it slopes down there with a big wall going right down beyond, and you mightn't be able to stop yourself.

Keep cool, we shall see them together directly."

But they did not see the sheep cowering together as they expected, for though the top of the mountain was just as Joses had described, sloping down after they had pa.s.sed the summit and then going down abruptly in an awful precipice, no sheep were to be seen, and after making sure that none were hidden, the men pa.s.sed on cautiously to the edge, Bart being a little way behind, forcing his way through some thick bushes.

Just then a cry from Joses made him hurry to the edge, but he was too late to see what three of them witnessed, and that was the leap of a magnificent ram, which had been standing upon a ledge ten feet below them, and which, as soon as it heard the bushes above its head parted, made a tremendous spring as if into s.p.a.ce, but landed on another ledge, fifty feet below, to take off once more for another leap right out of sight.

"We must go back and round into the valley," said Juan. "We shall find them all with their necks broken."

"You'll be clever if you do," said Joses, in a savage growl. "They've gone on jumping down like that right to the bottom, Master Bart, and--"

"Is that the flock?" said Bart, pointing to where a similar wall of rock rose up from what seemed to be part of a great canyon.