he
crumpled body of his big-horn. "And I ought to get there now without
breaking my neck. Wow! that was a near tumble, all right! Careful,
boy, careful now! Them horns of yours ain't growed big enough to drop
on, like the sheep do."

He halted for a full minute, not that he was so tired in the arms, but
to recover from the shock received when he came so near falling. Then
once more resuming his labor, he presently had the satisfaction of
dropping beside the motionless body of his victim.

"Bigger horns than Smithy's had!" was his first exclamation, as he
bent over, the better to see; and at the same moment he became
conscious of the fact that some buzzards, or some other big birds,
were swooping around close by, making him think they had looked on his
dead sheep as their next dinner.

"Guess p'raps I'd better be tossing it over here, and letting it roll
down to the bottom; then I c'n foller the best way there is, and----"

Something gave him a sudden fierce blow that knocked Step Hen down on
his hands and knees; and he might have rolled over the edge of the
narrow shelf, only for his good luck in catching hold of the sheep's
rounded horns.

"Quit that, you silly! you nearly knocked me over that time!" he
shouted angrily; his very first thought being that one of the other
boys, presumably Davy Jones, because he was so smart about climbing
everywhere, had followed after him, and was thus rudely announcing his
arrival close on the heels of the first explorer.

But as Step Hen raised his head to look, to his surprise he failed to
see any one near him. A dreadful suspicion that Davy might have
pitched over the edge of the narrow shelf, after striking him,
assailed the scout; and he was almost on the point of looking, when
suddenly there was a rush of great wings, and he dropped flat on his
face just in time to avoid being struck a second time.

"Whew! eagles, and mad as hops at me for comin' here!" gasped Step
Hen, as, raising his head cautiously, like a turtle peeping out of its
shell, he caught sight of two wheeling birds that came and went with
tremendous speed.

He noted the spread of their immense wings, and it seemed to Step Hen
as if in all his experience he had never before gazed upon more
powerful birds than those two Rocky Mountain eagles.

Perhaps they had a nest near by, with young eaglets in it, and fancied
that he was bent on robbing them. Then again, the big birds may have
decided that they could m