Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/191

 when the incident was told him, “ye won’t have no doubt of it. Besides you hain’t reached the region yet where ye’re likely to tumble over them little playthings.”

Alden naturally was anxious to shoot a grizzly and hoped he would do so long before reaching Salt Lake. Jethro’s ambition at times was the same, but he was often in doubt. Shagbark told so many appalling stories of that monarch of the western wilds, that the negro thought it would be just as well in case they met a grizzly not to pick a quarrel with him.

Now and then they caught glimpses of a Pony Express rider. Twice these coursers of the plains passed so near the camp that they exchanged greetings with the emigrants but neither did more than rein his pony down to a walk. The minutes were too precious to indulge in gossip, and after a few unimportant words they were off again and thundered from sight.

On a certain delightful afternoon in summer, Alden and Jethro were several miles from the train, engaged in one of the hunts of which they had become very fond. They had left their friends two or three hours before,