Their dinner of salmon was greatly enjoyed. After dinner Jack and Fannin, seeing some fish jumping out at the mouth of the river, pushed off in the canoe and spent some time casting for them. But although they tried almost all their most attractive flies, they did not get a single rise, though the fish kept jumping all around them. While still occupied at this, the sun went down and before long the Indians began to make an extraordinary disturbance about the camp fire--shouting, rushing about, stooping down, and then throwing up their hands. When the two anglers reached the shore and inquired what had caused all the excitement, Hugh picked up by the wing and held aloft a tiny mottled owl. The little bird had been hunting about over the flat, and, attracted by the light of the fire, had flown about it several times; and the Indians, excited by its near approach, had begun to throw stones at it. A well-aimed shot by Jimmie had brought down the bird, which Charlie suggested would do for the next day's dinner.
"We haven't got down quite to eating owls," said Jack, with a laugh.
"Well," said Hugh, "I've eaten owl a number of times, and it's not at all bad eating, though, of course, it depends a little bit on how hungry you are. I guess most everything that runs or flies is pretty good to eat, if one only has appetite enough. I have tried a whole lot of things, and I put owl down among the things that are real good."
"How did you come to eat owl, Hugh?" asked Jack. "And when was it?"
"It's a good many years ago," said Hugh, "that I started, late in December, south from the Platte River with Lute North, expecting to load up a wagon with buffalo meat at once. We didn't take much grub with us as we meant to be gone only for a few days; and as buffalo had been plenty in the country to which we were going, we thought we could soon load the wagon.
"We travelled three days without seeing a head of game, and then crossed the Republican River and kept on south. In the river bottom we killed a turkey, but all the four-footed game seemed to have left the country. After going south two days longer and finding no game, not even an old bull, we turned back, for provisions were getting low. We crossed the Republican again, but got stuck in the quicksands; and the wagon sunk so low that the water came into the wagon box and wet our things, without doing much harm, however, for the sugar was the only thing that was spoiled. The flour got wet, and left us only about enough for two or three more loaves of bread. But we had a little piece of bacon left, so we had enough to carry us through. It took some hours to get the wagon out; and that afternoon, after leaving the river, we saw three old bulls feeding on the side of a ridge. At first Lute and I both intended to go after them; but as there was a better chance of approaching them if only one man went, and as Lute was a fine shot, I told him to go ahead, and I waited in the wagon. He took a circuit and got around the bulls so that the wind was right, then crept up behind a ridge until he was within a hundred yards, and fired--and the bulls ran off over the hills. When Lute came back, and I asked him how he came to miss them, he could give no explanation. 'I had as good a bead on that bull as I ever had on anything, and yet I missed him clean,' he said; 'shot clear over him.'