some elk meat, killed the fall before by Hugh, potatoes, canned tomatoes, and lots of good bread, and plenty of milk and cream. Joe said to Jack, as he watched him eat, after he had finished his own meal, "Eat hearty, Jack; it's a mighty good thing to enjoy your victuals like you do!"

"Well," said Jack, "I've enjoyed lots of good meals in my life, but it seems to me that this is the best I ever did eat, and this milk is splendid, too. I can drink a quart of it."

"It's something you don't get often on a cow ranch in this country," said Joe. "'Pears like the more cows a man has, the less milk he gets; but I tell you it's a mighty good thing to have, and it helps out the eatin' wonderfully."

"Well," said Mr. Sturgis, "it always seemed to me that it is worth while to have the best food there is going, just as far as you can afford it."

"You had better drink all you can, son," said Hugh, "because if you and me are going off for a trip, to be gone two or three months, you won't see any milk for a mighty long time."

Jack grinned as he replied, "Don't be afraid, Hugh. I'm going to fill myself just as full of the good things as I possibly can, and when I get where I can't have them, why, I will enjoy the things we can have just as much as I know how."

"That's good philosophy, Jack," said his uncle; "stick to it; always get the best you possibly can, but never grumble if that best is pretty poor."

Dinner over, Hugh and Jack adjourned to the bunk house, and there, sitting in its lee in the warm sunshine, they began to discuss their plans.

"Now, Hugh," said Jack, "what do you think about our summer's trip? Tell me all you can, for I want to know what is coming. Of course whatever you say goes."

"Well, son," said Hugh, "you have traveled and hunted and seen Indians, but there's one thing you have not done; you haven't done any trapping. It seems to me that it would not be a bad idea for you to learn something about that. I used to be a pretty fair trapper in my young days, and I reckon we can go down south here in the high mountains and perhaps get some fur; not much, but enough, maybe, to pay our expenses, and then we can come back here and turn it in to Mr. Sturgis as a sort of pay for our time and for the use of the horse flesh we have had."

"That seems to me a bully idea, Hugh; it does seem a shame for me to come out here every year and take you away from the ranch for all summer, for I suppose that, of course, my uncle pays you right along?"

"Sure he does," said Hugh. "He paid me my wages that season we spent up in the Blackfoot country, and again when we came down through the mountains, and again out in British Columbia, just the same as if I had been here hunting and wrangling horses for the ranch, working thirty days in every month. Of course, he does this on your account, he don't do it on my account; he does it because he is fond of you, and wants you to have a good time, and wants you to learn things about this Western country. I'm a kind of hired school teacher for you, and I tell you, Jack, I like the job, and I reckon you do, too. The reason I speak to you about it now is because you're older, and you ought to think about things more, and not just take the good things that come to you, like a hog under an acorn tree."

"Of course, Hugh, I understand, and I'm glad that you speak to me like this about it; but what do you mean by 'a hog under an acorn tree'?"

"Why don't you know that old saying about a hog going along and eating the acorns under an oak tree and never stopping to think where they come from, or who sends them? I expect it's just because he's a hog."

"No," said Jack; "that's new to me."

"Well," said Hugh, "I reckon it's a mighty good saying. To go back," he resumed; "now we can go down into the high mountains south of here on the other side of the range and trap, and maybe get a few beaver. Of course beaver ain't worth much now, but they are worth something. If we were out on the prairie down in the lower country it wouldn't be worth while to do it, because beaver fur gets poor early in the summer, but up in the mountains, where I think of going, fur is good all the year round—better in the early spring than it is late in the summer—but it's good enough all the time."

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "what particular place did you think of going to?"

"I thought of North Park," said Hugh. "There are high mountains there, plenty of game and fish, and it used to be a great country for beaver. It's a good many years since I've been in there. It must be a dozen years or more. Last time I crossed through there I had been camping on Henry's Fork of Green River, along with Ike Edwards, old John Baker, Phil Maas, and Dick Sun. That was a good bunch of men; mighty few like them in the country now. They were all old-timers, and all had skin lodges and lived there with their women in the country near Bridger, and in winter moved into houses which they had on Henry's Fork. I reckon I'll have to tell you something about them some of these days, but now we'll stick to our trip.

"North Park is high up, with mountains on both sides of it, mighty high mountains, too, and if there are any beaver living in that country, we will probably he able to find them. Beaver is about all the fur that's worth bothering with. There are not many marten, and if there were, the fur would not be good now. Of course, you may get a bear or so, and each bear would bring about seven or probably ten dollars, if we kill them before they begin to shed. Beaver is worth three or four dollars a pound. That would make a skin worth about five or six dollars—that is, a good skin. It's a good deal of a trick to skin a beaver and dry his pelt in good shape. It's one of them things, of course, that you have got to learn.

"On the other hand, beaver trapping is mighty hard work, and you had better know it beforehand. You've got to be in the water more than half the time, and have to get your beaver back to camp and skin 'em, and by the time you have been running to your traps, getting your beaver, setting your traps, packing your catch to camp and skinning it, you will think you've done a mighty good day's work. All the same, son, you're pretty husky, and there's no reason why you should not do a full day's work, but I tell you one thing we had better do, because it will add a whole lot to our comfort—we had better get rubber boots for both, before we start out, so that we won't get any wetter than we have to get. I have had a touch of rheumatism in past years, and I don't want to get any more of it."

"That seems bully, Hugh," said Jack. "I'm willing to work harder this year than ever before, and I'm bigger and stronger and better able to do work than I ever was before. I'll try to hold up my end just as well as I can."

"Well," said Hugh, "it ain't like as if we were stone broke, and trying to make a raise to carry us through the winter. We needn't work any harder than we feel like, but when I tackle a job I like to make it a good one, and I reckon you feel that way, too."

"Yes," said Jack, "that's the way I feel about it, for that is the way the people I think most of in the world have always talked to me."

"That's good sound sense, my son," said Hugh.

"Now tell me, Hugh, how do we go from here down into North Park?"

"It's quite a ways," replied Hugh; "eight or ten days' march. We go from the ranch down the Muddy to the Medicine Bow, up that river quite a little way, and then cross over the divide to the Big Laramie and follow that up into the Park. That takes us pretty well on to Laramie City, and I guess we may as well go there anyhow, if we are going to get the rubber boots I spoke about."

"In that case we ought to start just as soon as we