Part 6 (1/2)
St. Paul was reached in due season, and once more they started forth, this time headed west, with the hunting-land beckoning them on.
”Tell me about this, will you!” remarked Jerry, after they had crossed the broad prairies and were climbing the tremendous heights that lie like a barrier between the center of the continent and the Pacific Slope. ”How much more of it do we have before us, Frank? I'm getting so filled with wonder and awe that my tongue is getting into a rut with saying 'Ah!' so much.”
”Less than a day will see us through now. Once we get over this range there lies a long valley, and in that is where Martin Mabie has his ranch.”
”Then we'll do our hunting along the sides of the mountains?” suggested Will, who had used up nearly half his supply of films already, taking views of the wonderful things they saw on the trip.
”That's my impression, from what he wrote,” replied Frank.
”And he also said game was fairly plentiful, if I remember aright,”
remarked Jerry.
”Well, he did say that they had been so busy of late on the ranch that no one had had time for hunting, and consequently the game had not been bothered very much; which, I suppose, amounts to the same thing.”
”H'm! I hope he won't be so rushed with work that he can't take the time to go with us. Half of the fun would be lost if Mr. Mabie couldn't be along; for Jesse says he is the most entertaining man alive,” grunted Bluff.
”Oh, you forget that he said by the time we got there the work would slacken up, and he promised himself a vacation, just to renew his old pleasure of camping out in the wilderness, away from all mankind,”
laughed Frank.
”That relieves my mind some,” declared Bluff, brightening up.
”You're getting tired of all this travel, that's what ails you,” said Jerry.
”No; it isn't that,” remarked Frank. ”Bluff has confessed to me that for the life of him he can't remember putting that beautiful hunting-knife in the trunk along with his other traps; and if he left _that_ behind, half his pleasure would be lost. Now you know what's the matter.”
”Not that I wish it to be so, but if such should prove to be the case, there'll be one delighted grizzly bear out in these same mountains--the chap Bluff calculated on carving with that big sticker,” remarked Jerry jocosely.
But Bluff would not even smile. Truth to tell, he was counting the hours until he could open that trunk and relieve his distressed mind.
”Did you ever see a wilder bit of country?” said Frank, peering out into the gathering dusk, and trying to imagine those wooded hillsides populated with elk and buffaloes, and all the big game of the past, when a white man was never known west of the Great Lakes.
”Well, to tell the truth, I was thinking of that account I read in the paper we bought, about the work of a sheriff's posse in this region, chasing the bad men who held up a railroad train not a hundred miles away from here. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience for us to meet with, eh, fellows?” asked Will, who was known to have a timid streak in his make-up.
”Talk to me about your croakers!” jeered Jerry. ”Will, here, is enough to freeze the marrow in one's bones. There isn't one chance in a thousand that such an adventure will come our way, and he knows it.”
”Goodness! What a jar! The engineer must have thrown the air brakes on then in a big hurry! We're coming to a sudden stop, too! Oh! I wonder if anything can have happened? Are we going to have an accident, fellows?”
cried Will.
With much creaking of the wheels the heavy train came to a stop, and at the same moment the four chums, listening with considerable apprehension, caught the sound of many loud and excited voices just outside the car.
CHAPTER VI
AT THE VALLEY RANCH
”Listen!” exclaimed Frank, holding up his hand.
”Talk to me about your Tower of Babel! It wasn't in the same cla.s.s as that row. Twenty men trying to talk all at once!” growled Jerry, starting up.