branches—growing out of each antler. If I remember rightly, the record elk had a spread of nearly seventy inches and about seventeen points.”

“Whew!” Sandy whistled. “He must have been built like a truck!”

“He was a real granddaddy, all right,” said Mr. Cook and smiled at the memory. “But to get back to your question about guns, Sandy. Here are the cannons we’ll be taking along.” Mr. Cook got up and moved over to the gun rack at the end of the room.

“For power shooting, we’ll use this Weatherby .300 Magnum. And I think you boys ought to get used to this one.” Mr. Cook reached up and took down a beautifully balanced bolt-action rifle. “That’s a Remington 721 in a .30/06 caliber. It’s lighter than the Weatherby but it packs quite a punch.”

“Enough to bring down a mountain lion?” Mike asked eagerly.

Mr. Cook looked at the two boys and allowed a slight smile to play at the corners of his mouth. “Since you both seem to have mountain lions on the brain, I’ll tell you something I was going to keep a secret ...”

But before he could finish, the sound of a telephone bell tinkled softly from the desk in the den.

“I’ll take it here, Julia!” Mr. Cook called as he reached for the receiver. “Hello,” he said. He listened for a moment, then broke into a beaming grin.

“Hank Dawson! You old son of a gun! Good to hear from you.” With the telephone still cradled to his ear, he maneuvered the cord across the desk and sat down in the chair behind it. “So you got my telegram.... Yes, we’ll be there. On the eighteenth. Oh, and Hank—bring along kits for four. That’s right. A friend of ours is coming along. A lad named Sandy Steele. Right. See you then. Goodbye.”

Mr. Cook put down the telephone with a chuckle and swiveled around to face the boys. “Well,” he said. “Speak of the devil ...”

“Who was that?” Mike demanded.

“That, Mike, was about the best professional guide and hunter in the Rockies. His name’s Hank Dawson and he has a honey of a hunting lodge up in the Lost River Range. The three of us have a date to meet Hank on the eighteenth. He’s meeting us with pack mules and horses at a place called Mormon Crossing on the Lost River. I think you’ll like Hank. He shares an enthusiasm of yours.”

“What’s that?”

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