Step Hen was a self-reliant boy, at any rate; sometimes the scoutmaster feared too much so. And since he had said he was going to get that game, and was already part way down the face of the rocky wall, there was nothing to be done but keep right along, which he proceeded to do. He could not get the slightest glimpse of his comrades. They were somewhere up above him; but just as the guide had declared, the face of the wall fell away in places, and this kept taking him further beyond their range of vision constantly. Whenever he could do so without imperiling his support, Step Hen would crook his neck, and look downward, in the hope of seeing where the sheep lay. He could not help thinking how much easier this effort would come for him, if a kindly Nature had given him the extensive neck that Giraffe possessed. "There it is!" he exclaimed, joyfully, as his anxious eyes fell upon an object just a short distance below, and which he knew must be the crumpled body of his big-horn. "And I ought to get there now without breaking my neck. Wow! that was a near tumble, all right! Careful, boy, careful now! Them horns of yours ain't growed big enough to drop on, like the sheep do." He halted for a full minute, not that he was so tired in the arms, but to recover from the shock received when he came so near falling. Then once more resuming his labor, he presently had the satisfaction of dropping beside the motionless body of his victim. "Bigger horns than Smithy's had!" was his first exclamation, as he bent over, the better to see; and at the same moment he became conscious of the fact that some buzzards, or some other big birds, were swooping around close by, making him think they had looked on his dead sheep as their next dinner. "Guess p'raps I'd better be tossing it over here, and letting it roll down to the bottom; then I c'n foller the best way there is, and----" Something gave him a sudden fierce blow that knocked Step Hen down on his hands and knees; and he might have rolled over the edge of the narrow shelf, only for his good luck in catching hold of the sheep's rounded horns. "Quit that, you silly! you nearly knocked me over that time!" he shouted angrily; his very first thought being that one of the other boys, presumably Davy Jones, because he was so smart about climbing everywhere, had followed after him, and was thus rudely announcing his arrival close on the heels of the first explorer. But as Step Hen raised his head to look, to his surprise he failed to see any one near him. A dreadful suspicion that Davy might have pitched over the edge of the narrow shelf, after striking him, assailed the scout; and he was almost on the point of looking, when suddenly there was a rush of great wings, and he dropped flat on his face just in time to avoid being struck a second time.