Chapter 13

A PONY RIDER BOY'S PLUCK

“White boy him make shoot,” grunted Anvik.

“He has shot?” questioned Ned.

“Ugh.”

“How do you know?”

“Hear um.”

“You must have pretty good ears. I haven’t heard anything,” replied the fat boy. “How do you know it wasn’t someone else?”

“Know um gun.”

“It is queer we didn’t hear him,” said the Professor. “Do you think he got some game?”

The guide nodded.

“We shall see how good a fortune-teller you are, but the joke will be on you if it should prove not to have been Butler at all.”

To this the guide made no reply. In the meantime, Tad Butler was having his troubles. The problem of how to get the antelope back to camp was not so easily solved. But Tad thought he knew a way. First he got a stick, which he sharpened at both ends. The stick, about six feet long, he thrust through slits he had made in the hocks of the animal, somewhat similar to what he would have done had he been going to string the carcass up.

First strapping his rifle over his shoulder, the Pony Rider Boy raised the stick to his shoulders also, and, stooping, lifted the animal. It was a heavy burden and he staggered. The head of the antelope was dragging on the ground, which made Butler’s labor still more trying.

The lad started away, keeping close to the stream in his search of a fording place, but he failed to find anything that looked easier than the portage he had used before, so he finally decided to go back to that. By the time he reached the former point he was obliged to drop his burden and sink down on the rocks to rest.

“Whew, but it’s hot. And the mosquitoes and the gnats! If it isn’t one pest in the wilds, it is sure to be another and a worse one,” he concluded somewhat illogically, measuring the width of the stream with his eyes. “I’ll try it.”

The weight of his burden was a help rather than otherwise in crossing the glacial stream, for the weight kept the boy on his feet, except on one occasion when stepping on a flat, slippery rock, they were whipped out from under him. Tad went in all over, with the antelope on top of him, and there he struggled and splashed, losing his foothold almost as fast as he gained it.

“Well, I am a muffer,” gasped Tad, finally getting to his feet. “I’m worse than Chunky. I deserve a worse wetting, but I guess that’s impossible.”

The journey to the other side was made without further mishap. Then began a hard, grilling tramp down through the pass, the ends of the pole on which the animal was suspended continually catching on limbs and brush, frequently throwing Butler down, tearing his clothes and scratching his face and neck. His dogged determination carried him through, however, but he was in the end considerably the worse for wear. The first his companions saw of him was when Tad fell out into the open in plain sight of the camp, flat on his face, with the carcass on top of him. At first glance they thought it was a live animal they had seen.

“Get a gun, quick!” bellowed Stacy.

“Him white boy,” answered the Indian. “Him git um.”

“What, Tad?” Ned uttered a yell and started on a trot for his companion who, by this time, was getting up slowly and with evident effort. Stacy and Walter followed. “What have you got there? We came near letting go at you.”

“Yes, yes, we thought you were a bear,” chuckled Stacy.

“It’s a deer,” cried Walter Perkins.

“Him antelope,” nodded the Indian wisely. “White boy heap much big hunter.”

“I’m afraid I am a better hunter than I am a toter. Stacy, I fell in.”

“Ye-e-e-ow!” yelled the fat boy joyously.

“Here, let us take him in,” offered Ned, reaching for one end of the carrying stick.

Butler shook his head.

“I said I was going to get him to camp alone and I shall.”

“But–” protested Ned.

“Oh, let him carry the beast if he wants to. Tad likes to work,” laughed the fat boy.

“Which is a heap sight more than may be said of some persons we know of,” returned Ned.

Tad dragged the carcass into camp, casting it down a short distance from the tents.

“Him heap big little man,” reiterated the Indian.

“How much does the animal weigh?” asked the Professor.

“A good ton, I should say,” replied Tad, sinking down by the fire. “I’m all tuckered out.”

“You had better get on some dry clothes.”

“These will dry in a few minutes by the fire,” was the philosophical reply.

“Yes, that’s right,” bubbled Stacy. “When one side gets dry I’ll pry you over with the stick on which you brought in the carcass. You can’t say I don’t do my share of the work in this outfit.”

“I think I prefer to do my own rolling. I don’t dare trust you,” laughed Tad.

“That’s it, you see. When I try to do anything you won’t let me.”

“Perhaps Anvik will show you how to skin and cut up the antelope.”

“I don’t want to know how to skin an antelope. We don’t have that kind at home, so what’s the use knowing about it? I know how to ‘skin the cat,’ and that’s enough,” Chunky declared.

Anvik deftly strung up the carcass and in half an hour had it neatly dressed, the boys watching the operation with interest.

“Heap much good meat,” he nodded.

“Yes, heap,” admitted Stacy solemnly. “What are you going to do with it all?”

“Eat um.”

“All of it?”

“Some of um. Mebby wolf eat um rest. Mebby bear eat um.”

“Mebby they don’t. Mebby Stacy Brown will eat um if there is any left when my hungry friends get through with it to-morrow,” jeered the fat boy. “I’ll have mine rare, if you please.”

“Huh!” grunted Anvik with the suspicion of a grin on his usually stolid countenance.