“I understand sunthin’ now that I didn’t quite see into afore,” thought he. “Lish knowed that me an’ the perfessor would be sartin to strike fur this valley, and that’s why he put that thar writin’ on to Ike Barker’s door. He reckoned that if Ike tuk back his muel, as a’most any other feller would ’a’done, that would knock us in the head, an’ him an’ his pardner would have the country to themselves. But that thar leetle game didn’t work, did it, Lish? I knowed it was yerself the minute I seed yer trail a-dodgin’ ahind all them trees an’ rocks. Ye knowed the perfessor was a-hollerin’ fur me, an’ ye didn’t want to see me, did ye? No; I reckon ye didn’t—kase why, when we set eyes on to each other, we’ll pull ha’r, me an’ you will.” The guide did not explain all this to his employer, because he knew, as well as if Oscar himself had told him so, that there was something between him and Lish the Wolfer, or between him and his partner, whoever he might be. When Oscar read the note the ranchman found fastened to his door, he was nearly overwhelmed with excitement, or something else, and the guide had noticed it. So had Ike Barker, and the two had discussed the matter after the boy fell asleep in his bunk; but, of course, without arriving at any solution of the mystery. It was plain enough to Big Thompson that his young employer knew more about one or the other of these two worthies than he cared to reveal; but he had never said anything to him about it, for he knew that it was no concern of his. If Oscar were in need of his assistance, and chose to take him into his confidence, he would give him all the help he could. Until then he would keep his mouth closed. This was the way Big Thompson looked at the matter, and the conclusions at which he arrived showed that he was as expert at following out a course of reasoning as he was at following a trail. During the next three weeks our hunters employed their time in much the same way that they had employed it during the three days the incidents of which we have so minutely described. They had come out there to hunt and trap; and they went about their business as regularly as a carpenter or a book-keeper goes about his daily work. Oscar passed one day in stalking some of the numerous herds of elk that roamed in the upper end of the valley, and the next in visiting traps he had set along the banks of the brook. Good luck attended all his efforts except in two, or, we may say, three instances. He never went out after the elk that he did not succeed in bringing down one; and, whenever he made the round of his traps, he always brought to the cabin at least half a dozen, and sometimes more, valuable fur-bearing animals.