O the fine adventure had failed. Not but what Hugh knew that on the morrow he would begin to plan another and equally fine adventure. Yet he and Fred and old Red Wolf were as deeply depressed as though all the fossil remains of Wyoming had been destroyed when the slide had crushed the newly exposed body of the giant dinosaur. To be sure, Red Wolf, after the first shock of failure had passed, had tried to tell Hugh of a certain fabulous cliff dwelling full of bones, sacred to the mysterious origins of the Sioux tribe. But Hugh, disappointed and bereft, would not listen. He gave orders to break camp and the start for home was made two hours after the south slope of the mountain had jealously recovered the remains of that gigantic memory of the past.
The mountain bordered the extreme west line of the Old Sioux Tract. The Roaring Chief river paralleled the west line of the Tract, fifteen miles to the east. Between lay a rugged upheaval of mountains and canyons, deep now in December snows.
It was mid-morning when Hugh led the way out of the camp under the lee of the mountain, southeastward into the wild valley that lay between the fossil peak and the flat-topped plateau known chiefly as the haunt of wild horses. Save for occasional gnarled cedar clumps, the brilliant orange and red sides of the peak and the plateau were barren. Even the snow had been unable to cling to those steep, hard walls. But the floor of the valley was covered with quivering aspens whose pastel-green trunks and delicate gray boughs were set too thick to permit the passage of a rider. Hugh led the little caravan along the rough snowy space that remained open between the wall of the plateau and the aspen grove.
The going was extremely rough Hugh sat tense in the saddle, spurring his horse, Fossil, over rock heaps and through drifts as though he found mental easement in doubling thus the difficulties of the trail. Fred Allward, the little gray-bearded man who drove the freight wagon, and old Red Wolf, driving the sheep wagon, huddled in their mackinaws, swore at the mules and glanced askance at Hugh.
Hugh, in spite of the tensity of his seat, rode with the easy assurance of one bred to the saddle. He showed thin and muscular even through his mackinaw and corduroy riding breeches. A round beaver skin cap, pulled low, hid all his hair save a thick chestnut lock that blew across his forehead. His face was long and thin like his body, with high cheek bones and a long jaw line that showed sharply beneath his ears. There were lines around his gray eyes, drawn there by sun strain, by irritation and by humor. It was by no means a handsome face—though it clearly showed a fine intelligence. His mouth alone was beautiful. It was full curved and sensitive; a curiously ardent mouth to dwell in so fine-drawn a face. Hugh was in the thirtieth year of his age.
It was three o’clock when he led the way out of the narrow valley into a wider one, blue with snow and treeless save for a grove of spruce a mile to the north. Hugh headed directly for this grove, and Fred sighed with relief and lighted his pipe.
Hugh, too, suddenly conscious of the unbelievable beauty about him, relaxed a little in the saddle. A world of blue sky and snow and distant heaven-kissing peaks Even the spruce trees, as he led toward them, showed a true, though darker, blue, against the snow. The great bronze cones, massed in the higher boughs of the trees, gave the only variety to the great monotone.
At the edge of the grove, Hugh turned in the saddle. “Let’s make camp, boys!” he called
Fred pulled his mules to their haunches so suddenly that Red Wolf’s team bumped their noses on the tailboard of the freight wagon. Red Wolf grunted, swung his mules clear and leaped over their flinging hind legs to the ground. He began to unhitch at once while Fred built the fire in the little stove in the sheep wagon and Hugh, with his gun over his arm, followed new rabbit tracks that led into the grove.
It was dusk when the three men crowded into the sheep wagon to eat supper. It was as snug within as the cabin of a tiny ship. There were bunks at one end of the wagon, a little stove and kitchen fittings at the other. In the middle, a narrow table that lifted against the frame of the canopy when not in use. When all the fried rabbit had been devoured and the third round of coffee begun, Hugh broke the silence by saying, “Well, I’m sorry I went loco this morning, boys. But that was the most nearly perfect specimen I’ve ever seen, and it was nothing but fool carelessness that lost him to us.”