Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/27

Rh cold. I know there's no chance for me to get you to do real work. But damn me—I can't help but think there's a little of the old stuff in you somewhere, and I've been thinking that a hard course with rifle and fly rod might—might get you going along the right lines. If you'd once learn to love the outdoors, and learn to love to fight, who knows what might not happen."

"And you suggest—that I take a trip after lions?"

"Lions are hard game, not for children," was the reply. "'I hunted the lion,' was one of the few things an old and tough Egyptian Pharaoh saw fit to record imperishably on his monument—but you're not a Pharaoh yet, I've got something here."

He fished through many waistcoat pockets and drew out a clipping, spreading it out on the broad arm of his chair. "I thought of you when I read it—and cut it out—and I thought what I would have done if it wasn't for the old game leg. I thought maybe it would stir up your dormant imagination and set you off. Read it."

Hugh read, noting first that the clipping was a reprint from an Idaho paper:


 * The stockmen of the Smoky Land section, up Silver Creek way, say that unless government hunters come to their aid, the stock business in that district will be seriously impaired. Wolves and coyotes seem