“If this ain't a sheep an' bear country, I've made the worst guess I ever made in my life.”
For five minutes they looked, without a word passing between them. Behind them their horses were nibbling hungrily in the thick, rich grass. The sound of the many waters in the mountains droned in their ears, and the valley seemed sleeping in a sea of sunshine. Langdon could think of nothing more comparable than that—slumber. The valley was like a great, comfortable, happy cat, and the sounds they heard, all commingling in that pleasing drone, was its drowsy purring. He was focussing his glass a little more closely on the goat standing watchfully on its crag, when Otto spoke again.
“I see a grizzly as big as a house!” he announced quietly.
Bruce seldom allowed his equanimity to be disturbed, except by the pack-horses. Thrilling news like this he always introduced as unconcernedly as though speaking of a bunch of violets.
Langdon sat up with a jerk.
“Where?” he demanded.
He leaned over to get the range of the other's telescope, every nerve in his body suddenly aquiver.
“See that slope on the second shoulder, just beyond the ravine over there?” said Bruce, with one eye closed and the other still glued to the telescope. “He's halfway up, digging out a gopher.”
Langdon focussed his glass on the slope, and a moment later an excited gasp came from him.
“See 'im?” asked Bruce.
“The glass has pulled him within four feet of my nose,” replied Langdon. “Bruce, that's the biggest grizzly in the Rocky Mountains!”
“If he ain't, he's his twin brother,” chuckled the packer, without moving a muscle. “He beats your eight-footer by a dozen inches, Jimmy! An'”—he paused at this psychological moment to pull a plug of black MacDonald from his pocket and bite off a mouthful, without taking the telescope from his eye—“an' the wind is in our favour an' he's as busy as a flea!” he finished.
Otto unwound himself and rose to his feet, and Langdon jumped up briskly. In such situations as this there was a mutual understanding between them which made words unnecessary. They led the eight horses back into the edge of the timber and tied them there, took their rifles from the leather holsters, and each was careful to put a sixth cartridge in the chamber of his weapon. Then for a matter of two minutes they both studied the slope and its approaches with their naked eyes.
“We can slip up the ravine,” suggested Langdon.
Bruce nodded.
“I reckon it's a three-hundred-yard shot from there,” he said. “It's the best we can do. He'd get our wind if we went below 'im. If it was a couple o' hours earlier—”
“We'd climb over the mountain and come down on him fromabove !” exclaimed Langdon, laughing.
“Bruce, you're the most senseless idiot on the face of the globe when it comes to climbing mountains! You'd climb over Hardesty or Geikie to shoot a goat from above, even though you could get him from the valley without any work at all. I'm glad it isn't morning.