d ought to be proud of
'em; 'cause they ain't many fellers as kin say the fust wild game
they ever knocked down was a big-horn. I've knowed old hunters as
couldn't ever git one, try as hard as they might. We had a heap of
luck to-day, let me tell you, boys, a heap of it. And for mutton,
'twan't so _very_ tough, either."

"Oh! I thought I heard some one give a funny little cough just then!"
exclaimed Step Hen, suddenly sitting up straight.

"You was correct at that," said the guide, quietly drawing his rifle
closer to him, as though caution were second nature. "There is some
parties accomin' down the canyon here, and headin' for our fire."

"The boys, mebbe!" exclaimed Davy Jones.

"No, I don't think they be," Toby Smathers added, straining his eyes
to catch the first glimpse of the newcomers; for in this wild region,
strangers are not to be always recognized as friends until they have
proven themselves such.

"There's two of 'em," remarked Step Hen, "and they're men, I c'n see."

"Hello! there, don't shoot, we're friends, all right!" called a voice,
so peculiar in itself that Toby immediately laughed aloud, as though
he had no difficulty in recognizing it.

"Is that Sheriff Bob McNulty?" he asked.

"Nobody else," came the reply; "and unless I'm mighty far off my base,
that must be my old friend, Toby Smathers, the forest ranger."

The two men came on to the fire. The boys saw that the one whom Toby had
called Sheriff Bob was a tall, angular man, wearing the regulation
wide-brimmed soft hat, and long black coat that sheriffs out in the Wild
and Woolly West seem to so frequently think a badge of their calling.

He impressed them as a man of sterling character; but they did not
entertain the same sort of an opinion toward his companion, who was a
middle-aged man, lanky and sinister in appearance, and with a crafty
gleam in his shifting eyes that somehow gave Step Hep and Davy Jones a
cold feeling of distrust.

"Why, what's this mean, Toby; you a forest ranger camping with a parcel
of kids?" exclaimed the sheriff, throwing a quick, interrogative glance
toward his companion, which the other answered with a negative shake of
the head, after giving each of the three boys a keen look, while a shade
of bitter disappointment crossed his crafty face.

"Oh! it was an off season for me, Sheriff Bob," replied the guide,
laughing; "an' I thought I'd try playing guide again, this time to a
bunch of Boy Scouts what come ou