"All right," answered Jack; and he and Donald went forward. They had passed Jack's horse only about twenty feet, when Jack stopped and pointed, and in a moment Donald could see the yellow bodies of the elk showing up in the shadow as they walked along the ravine. "Shan't we kill one?" whispered Donald after a moment. "It doesn't seem worth while. These fellows are growing their horns now, and they'll be poor enough for a month longer. You know, those horns grow about as fast as corn, and they're a terrible drain on the animal. On the other hand, just as soon as they have got their growth, and begin to harden, the bull elk lay on fat in a way to astonish anybody, and by the end of August, or first of September, they are fit to kill--hog fat. Besides that, even if these elk were in good order now, we don't want to finish our hunt at the very beginning of the day, and then have to go back to the ranch and stay around there until night. If we keep on we can very likely find a yearling or a two-year-old heifer that will make us good meat and be worth bringing back." For some time the boys watched the elk's slow progress up the ravine, but at length the animals turned off into a side ravine and disappeared among trees and brush and were seen no longer. Then the boys went back to their horses, remounted and rode on up the trail. After a time they came up out of the ravine into a narrow grassy valley with little groves of quaking aspen and bordered on either side by high ridges of weathered pink granite. Here the slope was gradual, until at the head of the valley they reached a rolling plateau, with aspens here and there, and farther off higher hills, crowned by pines. The country they were entering was singularly picturesque. Donald was greatly impressed, while the apparently practical Jack Mason declared that it was as pretty a hunting country as he'd ever seen. Everywhere in the bare soil of the plateau which showed among the tufts of grass, already beginning to turn yellow, were seen the traces of elk. Some of the tracks had been made in the spring when the soil was wet; they had sunk deep in the soft mud, and showed the imprints of the dew-claws. Other much later foot-prints had been made on dry earth, but were dull, windworn, and covered with dust; while occasionally were seen tracks fresh and glistening, made by animals which had passed along only a short time before. "There are certainly plenty of elk here," remarked Jack Mason to the other Jack. "Lots of them," was the reply. "Of course I don't claim to know much about the whole West, but I have never been in any place where elk seemed as plentiful as they are here. We may ride on to some at any time, and for the present we don't need to hunt, because whenever we want to kill something we can do it."