“Well, let’s get these things in something like order before the boys come in.  Sort out what belongs to you, and chuck the balance of your extra clothes in your own bag, for I see that you’ve had most of them out”

“Yes.  I even wondered if I could have stuck that knife in among my other shirts and underclothes, but it isn’t there.  I’ll have to stand it, but you fellows will never know what a loss this is to me.  Coming all this distance, too, just to get a chance to use it on an elk, or something worth while.”

Frank thought that if Bluff had his way his mates would at least never have a chance to forget about his great loss, for he was apt to remind them of it every little while.

Will now came bustling in, anxious to ascertain if his little developing outfit came through safely, together with his packages of hypo and other necessities.

It was decided to put in that day around the ranch seeing how Mr. Mabie ran his business.  Then on the following morning a party of them intended to set out for a camp in the mountains, where game would likely be found.

“We’ll occupy three camps I have in view.  From the first we can go to the second by taking several bullboats that will be waiting for us, and shooting the rapids in the river.  That would be an experience you boys might enjoy,” remarked the stockman as they rode around the valley to get a comprehensive grasp upon the way in which this enterprising settler carried on a big cattle ranch.

Reddy seemed to have been picked out by the owner to keep with them.  Frank was glad of this, for somehow he had come to entertain a fancy for the smiling young cowboy.

“Rapids, did you say?” exclaimed Jerry, his face lighting up with rapture.  “Why, that would tickle us from the ground up.  I’ve always wanted to run through some little Niagara.  Frank, here, has done it up in Maine, so he tells us.  I hope what you have will beat his experience all hollow.”

“Well, they are some rapids, I understand,” replied the other, smiling.

“And if I could only be on the shore, to see you shoot down, it would afford me the greatest pleasure in the world.  Not that I don’t want to go through, too, but my first duty is toward securing all these wonderful events in an imperishable way by taking a picture.  Some scoffers may doubt a story, but pictures never lie.”

“That shows your innocence, Will,” remarked Jerry.  “Why, I’ve seen fellows standing beside the fish they caught, which I knew myself to be only ten inches long, and yet the cunning photographer had arranged it so that it looked all of two feet.”

“I’m surprised that you, with all your experience, shouldn’t know that,” said Frank, pretending to frown.

“You mistook my meaning, that’s all.  What I intended to say was that my pictures would never lie,” affirmed Will sturdily.