not wish to wait.

The sun had nearly reached the western mountains when they rode down into the Swiftwater Valley, and though they galloped along at a good pace, it was long after dark before the lights of the ranch house met their eyes. A little later they halted before the barn.

"Now, son, you're here again, and this time I expect you don't need no looking after. We'll unsaddle here; you hang your things up on the old peg, and we'll leave the horses in the stalls to-night."

A few moments later, carrying their guns and Jack's bag, they stepped into the kitchen of the ranch, and were warmly welcomed by all hands.

CHAPTER II. A GLANCE BACKWARD.

It was late May at the Swiftwater Ranch; back in the east it would have been summer, but here the snow was falling heavily, and being whirled about the buildings by the high wind, piling up in drifts on the leeward side, and being swept off the ground to windward. Down in the bunk-house Jack Danvers and Hugh Johnson were sitting on the floor near the warm stove, looking over pack-saddles, cinches and ropes, for they were preparing to make a long journey.

Only the day before Jack had reached the ranch from New York, after an absence of seven months, and all his friends there were glad to see him again. During the winter he had succeeded in persuading his parents to consent to his making the long trip up north to the Piegan camp, of which Hugh and John Monroe had talked to him the year before. Mr. Sturgis, his uncle, wished to have him go, and had said that he was willing to let Hugh be absent from the ranch during the time needed for the journey and the stay in the Indian camp. This would be not less than four months, for it would take them a month to reach the camp, and nearly as much more to return, and it was not worth while to make so long a trip unless they were to stay with the Indians two or three months.

It will be remembered by those who have read the adventures of Jack during his summer spent on Mr. Sturgis' ranch, that he had learned a good deal about life in the west;—to ride and shoot and throw a rope—and had been taught by Hugh much of the knowledge required by one who lived the open-air life of mountain and prairie. Hugh had said, and Jack's uncle agreed with him, that they two could perfectly well make the journey to the north. There was only one possible cause of anxiety, and that was the chance that they might meet with some party of hostile Indians, in which case they might have to fight for their lives. There was not much danger that this would happen, for spring had but just opened, the grass was only now beginning to start; the Indian ponies, which are always thin in flesh at the end of the winter, would not have become fat; and so it was too early for war parties to be moving about much. On the other hand, the riding and pack animals taken by Hugh would be fat and in good condition, and so, well able to run away from any pursuers. It had been determined, too, to select horses that were fast, and when these precautions had been taken, and Hugh's great knowledge of Indians and their ways was considered, the danger of trouble appeared very slight.

Mr. Sturgis was extremely fond of Jack, and dearly loved his sister, and he would not for a moment have thought of letting the boy run any risks.

"I didn't hardly know you yesterday, son, when you got off the train; you seem to have changed a heap since you went away from here last fall. You're sure grown; you're a heap taller than you were, and you look kind o' white and bleached out, like you'd faded."

"I guess that's so, Hugh," replied Jack, "I know I've grown pretty near two inches, for I was measured last fall, when I entered school, and again this spring when I left, and of course I'm white, because I've been living in a house ever since I got back, and haven't been out of doors at all."

"Well, what did ye do all winter?" said Hugh; "went to school, I reckon, and learned a whole lot. Study hard?"

"Yes, I studied hard. Of course I wanted to do well, but after I'd been back a little while, I thought that maybe if I worked right hard at school, and got good reports right along, father would be more willing to have me come out here again and spend the summer with you."

"Well, that was pretty good sense. I expect ye tried to keep him pleased with your schooling right along."

"Yes, I did," said Jack. "I told Uncle Will about it soon after I started in at school, and he said it was a mighty good idea, and I'd better keep it up. I don't know whether they would have let me come or not, if it hadn't been for Uncle Will. When he left home in the spring I heard him say to mother, 'Jack's been working hard all winter, and he's getting to look pretty thin and white; I really think you'd better send him off to me again in a month or two, for that long trip that he and Hugh have been planning.' So along in April I spoke to father about coming out again. He said he was willing I should come if mother was, and that he'd talk to her about it; so after a while it got so that we all of us talked it over together, and at last father and mother both said that I could come; and here I am, and mighty glad to get back here, too, you bet."

"Well, you bet, we're mighty glad to see you, and we'd like to have you stop here right along; only I don't expect that would do, 'cause ye're young and ye've got a heap to learn; but it's sure mighty good for a boy to spend three or four months out here in the fine weather, and so to get ready for these long months when ye've got to live in a house all the time."

"There's one thing I did last winter, Hugh, that I think is going to be a lot of fun; I learned how to make a bird skin."

"Make a bird skin!" said Hugh. "How do ye make it?"

"I mean I learned how to skin a bird, and stuff cotton into it, and fix it up so that it looks just like a dead bird lying there with its legs stretched out. You know there are people who study birds and know all about all the different kinds. When they see a bird they can tell you in a minute just what its Latin name is, and where it lives in summer, and then where it goes to pass the winter, for of course there are lots of birds that go south in the fall, until the weather gets warm, and then come north again."

"Yes, that's so," said Hugh, "everybody knows that."

"Well," continued Jack, "of course there isn't any man who has been all over the world and seen all the birds that there are, alive; so the men that go to one place, kill and skin a lot of the birds that live there, and then when they get back they put these skins in a museum, where everybody can see them; and there are a lot of men doing this all the time; and so after a while the biggest museums come to have the skins of pretty nearly all the birds there are. There must be a lot of 'em in all. An ornithologist told me there were more than 750 in North America."

"What was it told you that?" asked Hugh.

"An ornithologist," said Jack.

"What's that?" questioned Hugh; "it's a mighty long word, 'pears to me."

"It means a man that studies birds, and knows all about them."

"Well," said Hugh, "I'd hate to be called by such a name as that, even if I did know all about birds."

"Why," said Jack, "that word isn't anything to some of the Latin names these little birds have. I don't know what they are, many of them, at least, but they're all written down in Uncle Will's bird book, up at the house, and some of them are terrors, I can tell you."

"And this man told you there was 750 different kinds of birds in this country, did he?" said Hugh.

"That's what he told