"There are certainly plenty of elk here," remarked Jack Mason to the other Jack.
"Lots of them," was the reply. "Of course I don't claim to know much about the whole West, but I have never been in any place where elk seemed as plentiful as they are here. We may ride on to some at any time, and for the present we don't need to hunt, because whenever we want to kill something we can do it."
It was only a little later that Jack's prediction was verified. As they rode across the opening of a little valley they saw, less than two hundred yards away, several cow elk and heifers feeding at the edge of the brush near the timber.
"There," said Jack, "what did I tell you?"
"There they are," returned Jack Mason; "sure enough."
"Shouldn't we go up there and try to kill them?" he asked eagerly.
"I think not," answered Jack. "We can get what we need going home. I think it will be better fun for us to ride on a little, and then climb up on some high peak and sit there and look over the country."
"All right," said Donald, resignedly; "go ahead; but I'd like to remind you of the story about the girl who was sent into the woods to get a straight stick, and kept rejecting pretty good sticks, hoping to get one still straighter, until finally, when she got to the outside she had to take one that was crooked."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Mason. "That's the way I've seen it done often with hunters. But let's follow Jack, Donald. He's the boss, and if we don't get any meat, we'll put the blame on him, and make lots of fun of him when we get back to the ranch."
For three quarters of an hour they rode on, constantly ascending by a gentle slope. Two or three times they saw other elk near or far off, and more than once Jack was warned by Donald of the humiliation of being laughed at when they got back to the ranch. But Jack only laughed and intimated that Donald was a British pilgrim.
At last Jack dismounted at a little grove of pine timber, at the foot of a rocky hill, steep and broken.
"Let's stop here," he said, "and climb up to the top of this hill and see what there is to look at. When we get up there, Donald can soothe his feelings with the British pipe he carries and the rest of us will study the landscape."