They had not been entirely unsuccessful, for Oscar had brought down a specimen with which he would have been quite satisfied if he had never seen that other buck. This specimen was slung across the mule’s back. It was easier to get the game home in that way than it was to haul it on a drag. “Look a-yere, perfessor!” exclaimed the guide. “Ye said somethin’ t’other day ’bout sendin’ me back to the fort, didn’t ye?” “Yes, I did,” replied Oscar. “There are several persons in the States who ought to know what I am doing out here; and besides, I believe there are letters for me at the fort.” “All right,” said the guide. “Now jest take my advice, an’ let that ole buck alone till I come back. If ye keep on foolin’ with him the fust thing ye know he’ll take that herd o’ his’n off to some other valley, an’ then ye’ll have to give him up, sure. It’s a wonder to me that he haint tuk ’em off long ago. If he stays yere we’ll have him as sartin as he’s a elk.” “If we can get him when you come back why can’t we get him now?” asked Oscar. “Kase we aint got what we want, that’s why. I’ve got somethin’ to hum that’ll fetch a muel-deer every time; an’ seems to me that it had oughter fetch that thar buck too. When I come back I’ll bring it with me.” “What in the world is it?” “Wal, now, perfessor, if I promise ye, honor bright, that ye shall have that thar buck to take back to the States with ye, hadn’t ye oughter be satisfied with that?” Oscar thought he had, but still it was hard work to control his curiosity. The boy had often talked of sending his guide to the fort to mail some letters he had written, and to bring back any addressed to himself that the colonel might have in his possession; and Big Thompson had as often declared his readiness to start as soon as the weather and the travelling would permit. There had been several days during the last three weeks on which it stormed so violently that the hunters were confined within doors. Oscar passed those stormy days in writing letters, and jotting down in his diary the particulars of such hunting expeditions as he thought worth preserving, while the guide smoked his pipe and meditated. After these storms the guide’s chances for making the journey seemed greatly lessened. The snow was now more than a foot deep on a level in the valley; and Big Thompson said that in the gorges, and on the exposed prairie, where the wind had a full sweep, the drifts must be twenty feet deep. “An’ the longer I wait the wuss the goin’ will git,” said he, as he lay on his blanket that night, watching Oscar, who was busy with the elk he had shot during the day. “I’ll try it to-morrer.” And he did.