“Nothing at all. I am simply trying to make you understand, that, while you were following the deer, I got the start of you.” “Whar did ye shoot him?” asked Big Thompson. “About four miles up the valley. And you were there, too, for I saw your trail.” “Not much, ye didn’t!” exclaimed the guide, who was very much surprised. “Kase why—I was five miles _down_ the valley.” “You were?” said Oscar, now beginning to be surprised himself. “Then there’s another hunter about here.” “Mebbe it was a bar track ye seed?” suggested the guide. “Don’t you suppose I can tell the print of a moccasin from a bear track?” inquired Oscar. “Of course, you don’t know who he is.” “In course not; but I’ll find out to-morrer, while yer fixin’ up that black-tail. I allers like to know who my neighbors be. I know this much, howsomever. If this yere valley is git tin’ settled up, it aint no place fur me an’ you. Somebody’ll have to be movin’; but it won’t be me an’ the perfessor,” he added to himself. Oscar laughed outright. The idea that a hunting ground, covering over three hundred square miles, was too densely populated when there were only three hunters in it, amused him. He did not object to the presence of a third party. On the contrary, if they chanced to meet him, and he proved to be the right sort of man, Oscar would have been in favor of inviting him to take up his abode in the cabin. He was a professional hunter, or he would not be in the hills at that season of the year, and he would have stories to tell that would help while away the long winter evenings. Big Thompson had other ideas. He had suspicions also; and, if he had communicated them to Oscar, it is probable that the boy would have thought as he did—that somebody would have to be moving. CHAPTER XXVII. BIG THOMPSON FOLLOWS A TRAIL. Both the hunters had work to do that night; and, as soon as supper had been eaten, they set about it; Oscar devoting himself to the deer, while Big Thompson removed and stretched the skins of the otter and mink he had shot during the day. The boy was so much interested in what his guide was doing that he made very little progress with his own task. Big Thompson, having spent many a year in the woods before he became a government scout, was an expert in all that pertained to the trapping and preserving of skins, and he handled his knife with a dexterity that excited Oscar’s admiration and envy. His work being done at the end of an hour, he lighted his pipe and watched the boy until he grew sleepy, and then he bade him good-night and sought his blanket. Nothing more was said about the unknown hunter, and Oscar never thought of him again until the next morning, when he awoke to find that the guide, after preparing breakfast for his employer, had taken his rifle and set off by himself.