slacken up, and he promised himself a vacation, just to renew his old
pleasure of camping out in the wilderness, away from all mankind,"
laughed Frank.

"That relieves my mind some," declared Bluff, brightening up.

"You're getting tired of all this travel, that's what ails you," said
Jerry.

"No; it isn't that," remarked Frank. "Bluff has confessed to me that for
the life of him he can't remember putting that beautiful hunting-knife
in the trunk along with his other traps; and if he left _that_ behind,
half his pleasure would be lost. Now you know what's the matter."

"Not that I wish it to be so, but if such should prove to be the case,
there'll be one delighted grizzly bear out in these same mountains--the
chap Bluff calculated on carving with that big sticker," remarked Jerry
jocosely.

But Bluff would not even smile. Truth to tell, he was counting the
hours until he could open that trunk and relieve his distressed mind.

"Did you ever see a wilder bit of country?" said Frank, peering out into
the gathering dusk, and trying to imagine those wooded hillsides
populated with elk and buffaloes, and all the big game of the past, when
a white man was never known west of the Great Lakes.

"Well, to tell the truth, I was thinking of that account I read in the
paper we bought, about the work of a sheriff's posse in this region,
chasing the bad men who held up a railroad train not a hundred miles