Early the next morning the little party left their Indian friends and started up the lake. By ten o'clock they had crossed the inlet and were on their way along the upper lake. The packs, well put on in the morning and constantly watched, gave them no trouble and there were no delays. Not long after noon they passed their previous camp just below the Point of Rocks, and climbing that steep ridge, kept on their way along the mountainside.
They traveled until after sunset and at last camped in a little park in the narrow valley, and by noon the next day had reached the old camp at the little lake where they had killed the bears.
Here the aspect of the mountains was greatly changed. Much of the snow had melted, the grass was well started, and the landscape looked more like summer.
The next morning they rose late, for the previous day had been long and hard. At breakfast Hugh said, "Now, to-day, let's picket the pack horses and ride up on the mountains prospecting, and see whether we can camp over there where that big snow bank lay when we were here last. I have an idea that we'll find most of the snow gone and that we'll have dry ground to camp on and some little feed near by for the horses."
Soon after breakfast they made ready to start.
"They say lightning don't strike twice in the same place," remarked Hugh, "but then it might, so I'm going to hang up all our stuff in one of these trees, where it will be out of the reach of the bears. If they get to mixing up our things once or twice more, we won't have anything to eat, and we'll have to go back to the Agency for grub. They'd like mighty well, I reckon, to get at this sheep meat, and if they could ever get hold of that sheep head of yours, son, they'd carry it off in the brush, and you never would find it."
Some little time was spent in making up the bundles and in putting them in places of safety in the trees. Then they saddled the horses, and climbing the steep game trail that led to the valley above, found themselves once more on the high bench on the mountainside. Here on the flat rocks there were still great expanses of snow, but it was melting fast, and clear torrents of water ran toward the river in the valley below.