CHAPTER XIV

A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE

Because in this story of Snap's life there are so many adventures I don't want my boy readers to go away with the idea that life out West is all fun and frolic, for of course I know, as well as anyone, that, to a hot-blooded English boy, roughing it, and facing dangers which he just manages to overcome, are fun and frolic. In the summer, the cowboy has a pretty idle time of it. If he is a fisherman, and there are trout-streams handy, he may while away the hours with a rod, but the rivers of the plains on which he and his cattle live are oddly enough very destitute of fish. Up in the hills, in the tarns and mountain streams, there is plenty of lovely Salmo fontinalis, or Canadian trout, strong and game fish, which take a fly as well as their English cousins, and make a really good fight before the angler manages to land them, bright bars of quivering purple and gold, on the grass at his feet. There are, too, towns sometimes near enough to attract the 'boys,' who think nothing of a fifty-mile ride across the prairie, and in these a good deal of the money advanced by parents at home is apt to be spent on billiards (of a very poor quality), gambling, and worse.

Luckily the autumn 'round-up' necessitates everyone's presence on the ranche, and from that time until summer there is constant, and occasionally severe, work to be done.

Snap found the worst time was from Christmas, when the really hard weather set in, until March. Luckily, the Rosebud people had laid in a very large supply of hay for winter use. Nares's rule was, 'Get in as much as can possibly be needed for the worst winter men ever saw, even though you may not want a quarter of it.'

And it was well in Snap's first year that such ample provision had been made, for not only did the snow fall continuously for many days, but it packed, thus preventing the beasts from getting at the sun-dried, self-cured prairie hay below. In the bitterest weather Snap and the other men had to go out and feed; had to visit the different bands sheltering in the coulees and hollows of the foot-hills; look alter the young and the feeble; get the beasts out of the timber, where, if left alone, they would shiver and starve rather than face the bitter wind which drove them back from the feeding-ground on the bare lands below; keep an eye on the coyotes and wolves; and perform a hundred other duties which required strength and hardihood, and which were certain either 'to kill a boy or make a man,' as Wharton put it.

Nature must have meant Snap for a cowboy. His long, lean figure, broad shoulders, and red-brown skin made him look a typical cowboy, almost before he was one. Enduring as a wolf, he made up by staying-power what he lacked in muscles, and day by day these developed through constant use.

The severe weather had brought down other beasts from the hills besides the patient oxen. Now and again, as Snap went his rounds, he saw in the snow a track into which both his own feet would go without destroying its outline. Sometimes, after following this track for a while, he would find patches of blood on the trail, and then a dead steer, torn by the huge claws and mangled by the teeth of 'old Ephraim,' as the trappers used to call the grizzly. If the beast had been killed some time, there would be other tracks near—wolf and coyote—showing that others had finished what the fierce king of the forest had begun. A dose of arsenic hid in the flesh that was left would generally enable the cowboys to cry quits with the wolves, and go some way towards compensating for the death of the steer by the acquisition of three or four handsome skins, but the grizzly himself never touched a 'doctored carcase.'

When Christmas came round it brought letters for Snap which kept his imagination busy all day. One was from the Admiral, another from the little mother, and a third from the guardian. The Admiral's accompanied a pair of field-glasses which had belonged to the dear old fellow for ages, and through which he had looked over many a stormy sea and sunny land. Through them he had seen the edges of all the world, the ports of every country, the shattered, shot-torn rigging of the enemy's fleet, and perhaps the powdered faces of many a European prima donna. 'Now,' he wrote, 'they are no good to me. Even these glasses won't help you to see through a London fog, and it's hardly respectable for the Chairman of the 'Company associated for the Culture and Civilisation of Puffin Islands' to be seen at a theatre. So, Snap, I send them to you. I wish I could look through them, my boy, and see you tending the cattle on a thousand hills.'

So the old gentleman was the director of a company, and Snap, knowing him well, thought that the shareholders in that company were luckier than their director, for, if downright honesty would insure the payment of a dividend by Puffin Islands, Puffin Islands, under the command of the Admiral, would pay. Poor old gentleman, it was a change to him, trudging into the City through sludge and fog to talk about guano and its prospects, instead of with gun and spaniel pottering about Fairbury coverts on the off chance of a 'cock.'

Then there was a letter from the 'mother,' concealing the miserable life she and her gallant old brother were leading in a dingy London back-street—a letter full of thanks to Snap for looking after her 'other two boys' on the way out, and regretting that the three could not be all together. She sent Snap what she imagined would be useful Christmas presents, and the tears came into his eyes as he thought of the weary hours which she must have spent stitch-stitching in the gloom of a London parlour to make those useless white robes for him. For, indeed, they were useless. Two of them were night-shirts—linen night-shirts!—to sleep in in a country where, if you touched an axe out of doors, the cold made it cling to your hand until either the skin came away on the axe or you put axe and hand together into hot water to thaw and dissolve partnership. He treated them very reverently at first, but, long after, Snap confessed that they had been very useful 'as overalls, with a pudding-bag used as an extempore night-cap, for stalking wild-fowl in the snow-time.'

Then there was a long letter from his guardian, reminding Snap that, 'had he only been advised by him, he might now be occupying an honourable position in commerce or the law, and making his way to a fair competency in his maturer years.'

'Yes,' muttered Snap, 'and supping on blue pills, with a breakfast of black draught, or (if very well) only Eno, to follow. No, thank you, my worthy relative,' muttered the boy. 'I prefer these "Arctic solitudes and uncultured men," as you civilly call them, to a solicitor's office, any day.'

Snap's guardian fell into a common error. Civilised himself, he couldn't understand the beauties of barbarism. Snap could; and of the two, barbarism and civilisation, thought barbarism the better horse.

The odd thing that Christmas was that there was no letter from Frank or Towzer, to whom Snap had already written more than once. Later on, Snap got a letter, but, as we will ourselves visit the other boys shortly, it is unnecessary to refer further to that here.

The Admiral's glasses nearly led Snap into a bad scrape, though the glasses were in no way to blame for it. As he stood trying them from the door of the ranche-house one morning, he said to Wharton, who was beside him:

'Dick, I believe I can see a band of cattle making up towards the line.'

'Like enough,' replied Dick, 'for there is, maybe, some little feed up that way; but you had better turn them, if you can, we don't want to lose any that way.'

'What way, Dick?'

'Why, if they get on the line the train may catch them before we do, and the C.P.R. won't stop for a beast or two; the "cow-catcher"' (a great iron fender in front of the engine) 'will just pick them up and chuck them off the rails in heaps.'

'The deuce,' muttered Snap, 'then I'd better go; the boys are out, and if the silly brutes go on as they are going now they'll just about get on to the line by the time the passenger train comes along.'

So saying, Snap threw his big Mexican saddle on his pony and started in pursuit, although it was already late in the day.

It soon became evident that his guess had been a correct one. He had lost sight of the beasts for a while, it is true, as they had passed through a thin belt of timber which temporarily hid them from him, but their tracks led straight on for the line. Still, there was lots of time, and, after all, the cattle would not be such fools, he thought, as to climb on to the line itself, where, of course, there could be no feed.

But they did. When Snap next saw them there were about two dozen beasts wandering aimlessly up 'the track' itself, towards the great trestle-bridge which spans the canyon (or gully) of the 'Elk Horn Crik.' The line here runs along a cutting in a hillside, and Snap, leaving his pony below, climbed painfully up to the level of the line.

Once up there, his work was only begun. Do all that he would, he could not get the beasts to leave their perilous pathway. They would not let him get up to them, but steadily jogged on in front of him towards the trestle-bridge. Having tried in vain to get round them, Snap looked at his watch. He had still nearly twenty minutes to spare before the train was due. If he could run the brutes up to the trestle-bridge they would never try to cross that, and he would be able to turn them down the bank, which, terribly steep as it was, was in places just practicable for the sure-footed, prairie-reared cattle.

So he pressed on, driving the cattle against time, as the dark grew ever darker, and the train nearer and nearer to the bridge. At last he thought as he ran that he could hear it far away in the hills, a low, distant, rattling noise, heard plainly for a moment, and then lost again as some high ground was brought by a twist of the line between him and it. The trestle-bridge, however, was in sight, and in another minute he had the satisfaction of seeing the stupid beasts trot up to it, stop, and then, first one, then another, turned and scrambled in headlong fashion down the bank. All except one. One perverse brute, a thorough Texan, 'all horns and tail,' would not follow his companions, but elected to try the bridge.

Perhaps my readers do not know what a trestle-bridge is. To understand the story, it is necessary that they should do so. A trestle-bridge, then, such as the one before Snap, is a bridge of timber, the beams laid at right angles to the line, and each beam about two feet from its neighbour. Across the beams run the iron rails, and between the beams is nothing at all but emptiness. The whole bridge is supported on a huge scaffolding, which rises from the sides of the canyon crossed, and in some cases these bridges are as much as 150 yards from end to end, and 250 feet above the stream which generally races along below. To walk over these bridges by daylight requires a clear head and steady nerves, for, though it is easy enough to stride from beam to beam for a few yards, it becomes more difficult as you proceed: the light gleams off the water below, flickers through the open spaces and dazzles you, while the sight of the vast profound underneath, and the knowledge that one false step will send you whirling between those beams to eternity, has not a steadying effect upon you.

These bridges are, most of them, very narrow, and on the one in question there was but a single line, the shunting station immediately preceding the bridge, which was not considered equal to the weight of two trains at the same time. And on this bridge the black Texan steer had elected to ramble. Clever as a goat, it stepped from beam to beam; then, as the light flickered up into its eyes, it grew nervous and stopped, afraid to come back, and afraid to go on.

Again Snap heard the warning rattle of the coming train amongst the hills, a faint whistle, and then again silence. He had saved all the herd but one. Should he leave that one?

'No, I'm blowed if I will,' muttered the boy, setting his teeth and feeling just as stubborn as the steer in front of him. 'That train won't be up for another quarter of an hour—you can hear it coming for miles on a frosty night like this,' he argued, and boldly enough he started on to the bridge, stepping freely from beam to beam.

The steer, seeing him coming, moved slowly on, trembling in every limb, but still determined not to be headed.

'Confound the brute,' thought Snap, 'I shouldn't wonder if he means me to follow him across the Rockies. I will head him, though!'

Just then the steer made a false step. One leg went just short of the beam on to which it had intended to step. It lurched forward, and for one moment Snap thought it had gone over into the abyss. But it recovered itself somehow, and stood trembling in every limb, and bellowing piteously in its fear.

Then, unfortunately, Snap himself looked down through the ribs of that skeleton bridge. It was getting dusk now, and he could not see very clearly; but below he could hear the roll of waters amongst the boulders, he could see the tops of trees far below him, and occasionally a white flash of foam where the river dashed against a black rock. He didn't like it, 'you bet,' as he said afterwards, 'he did not like it,' and the more he looked the less he liked it.

For some reason, unexplained, his knees at this juncture acquired an unhappy knack of knocking together, and grew weak and uncertain. With a start he pulled himself together. This would not do at any price. There was another hundred yards of bridge to traverse, and he hardly thought, if the train was 'on time,' that he would be able to coax that steer across before the train reached the bridge.

At that moment a roar sounded behind Snap—the roar and rattle of a huge engine, and then a piercing shriek from the steam-whistle—such a shriek, so shrill, so wailing, that it sounds among the lone peaks of the Rockies like the cry of some tortured spirit.

Snap's heart turned to stone in that awful minute, as the red light rounded the bluff not a hundred yards from the head of the bridge, and rushed towards him. Then the blood came back to his cheek, and the strength to his arm. Death was staring him in the face. Unless he DID something, he had not ten seconds to live. He would have raced for the other end of the bridge, but his brain was keener now than ever in his life before, and he knew human speed would avail him nothing in the time allowed him. In another few seconds the cow-catchers would sweep him off the track and hurl him down, down, rushing through the air over that narrow edge to the sharp, wet rocks below. The rails themselves were so near the edge of the bridge that a man could not stand outside the rails and escape. The foot-board of the train would sweep him down, or the wind from the engine blow him into space. There was only one thing to be done, and with a muttered prayer he did it. Dropping on his knees in the middle of the track, he seized a beam with both hands, lowered himself through the opening, and hung by his hands, dangling over the depth below. If he let go it meant death. His muscles were strong, his grip desperate, but could he hold on when the timbers rocked beneath the great mass of wood and iron which was even now upon them?

It was all like a horrible nightmare. He could see and hear everything so plainly, and think so clearly and so fast. Far down below he heard a great tree crack with the frost; looking up, he could see the Texan steer stupefied with terror. Then the bridge rocked and his hands almost lost their grip; a blaze of lurid light flashed in his eyes and blinded him; a breath as of a furnace licked his face for one moment and made him sick with horror; two or three great, bright sparks of fire dropped past him, down, down, into the darkness; there was a dull thud, and a mass of broken limbs was shot out into the dark night to fall with a faint splash into the river below; and then the train had passed, and Snap hung there still—saved from the very jaws of death.

Then, and not till then, the full horror of the thing came upon him. Then, and not till then, pluck, and coolness, and strength deserted him. He had held firm to the beam when it shook like a leaf in the blast, now he tried to draw himself up and he could not. He, Snap Hales, to whom the horizontal bar in the gymnasium at school had been a favourite plaything, could not, to save his life, draw himself up to his chin, and for a moment his fingers began to let go and he thought of dropping down, that he might have done with the struggle and be still.

Then he tried again. He felt that if he failed this time he would never succeed afterwards; his strength was all going fast, and inch by inch he dragged himself up with desperate effort, until at last he lay with a gasp half-fainting along the bars.

A long blood-curdling howl from somewhere in the mist-filled gorge beneath brought him to himself. Was it possible, he thought, that they had smelt the fresh blood already? Only five seconds more of indecision—a little less strength to regain his position upon the bridge—and his own shattered body might have made a meal for those grim and hungry scavengers! It was a horrible thought, and as he stepped clear of those dangerous timbers Snap looked up thankfully at the bright stars and beyond.

It was now dark save for the starlight; but that, reflected from the snow, was already bright enough to travel by. Later on, when the night was undisputed mistress of the earth, it would be light enough to read a letter on the prairie.

Unfortunately for Snap, he was likely to see a good deal of a Canadian winter night before he got home to the cheerful fire in the ranche-house. Misfortunes, they say, never come singly. In this instance the proverb was justified, for on looking for his pony Snap found it had broken away from the tree to which he had tied it, and had gone back towards home.

Snap was not only disgusted, but puzzled. A tramp home after his recent experiences was not quite what he would have chosen, and that the old 'Cradle' should have played him such a trick passed his understanding.

Just then a cry which reverberated amongst the great pines, and seemed to fill the forest with horror, explained the mystery. It was the cry of the hungry mountain lion seeking his prey by night. Snap glanced at the pine to which his horse had been tied. Yes, thank goodness, his rifle was there! it had not been strapped to his saddle; and as the boy got hold of his weapon confidence returned to him. If only he could get clear of the forest on to the open prairie he had no fear of the cowardly, sneaking brute behind him.

He tried to sing as he walked, to show his confidence and scare the beast with the sound of the human voice. But it was no good, he could not sing in that forest. Its awful silence rebuked him: the cold stars looked down, it seemed to him, in stony scorn, and his voice seemed so little and insignificant amongst all these mighty children of mother Nature.

Now and again the ice upon some stream, or the frozen limbs of some great tree, cracked like a loud rifle-shot. All else was still, except now and again for the voice of the red beast sneaking behind the boy somewhere in the shadows, still following, still afraid to attack.

The silence and lifelessness of a North American forest in winter is very impressive. The snow which covers the ground is lighter than swansdown, drier than sand. It falls unheard, it gives place to the foot without a sound. The birds are gone, or if not gone have hidden. The bear has made him a bed in some hollow tree or cave, and sleeps silently in the silent wood. The squirrel chatters no longer; he, too, has retired to his little granary in some hollow trunk. The rabbit and the weasel are still restlessly wandering about as usual, but both have changed their coats, and assumed a white covering to match the snows amongst which they live. Almost everything sleeps: trees in their robes of snow, the bear in his cave, the streams in their bonds of ice; even the winds are still. Nothing stirs.

If you have ever made a long walk at night by yourself over some lonely road or moor you may know that feeling which grows upon you, that some one is following you, that you can hear other footsteps than your own behind you. If this state of mind occurs to those who walk alone in England, where silence is really unknown and solitude impossible, where there are no mysteries (and very few, alas! of the beauties) of nature left, you can imagine how anxiously Snap kept gazing into the forest round and behind him for the owner of that awful voice, about which there could be no mistake, which was not the mere creation of any fancy.

At last he could see the edge of the open prairie, and, breaking into a run, he gained it. It was not a wise thing to do, for if anything will encourage a wild beast to attack, it is the appearance of flight in a man. And so it was in this case. As Snap gained the open he looked back, and as he did so, saw the long snake-like figure of the mountain lion come in long bounds across the snow.

As the boy faced about, the great reddish brute paused for a moment, crouching, its belly almost on the snow, for the last rush; its ears flattened back, its yellow eyes ablaze with murder, and its white fangs gleaming in the starlight. But a foe in the open can always be tackled and fought outright, and the flash of the good Winchester was redder than the anger in the wild beast's eyes, and the sharp, clear ring of the little rifle was a more unerring presage of death than even the scream of the mountain lion.

Over and over the great beast rolled, dyeing the snow with his blood, and Snap, standing beside him, guessed him at a good ten feet six inches from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail.

Having skinned the panther (for in the West this animal is called indifferently mountain lion, catamount, panther, and a good many more names), Snap once more plodded homewards, utterly worn out with fatigue and excitement.

The sound of his rifle had attracted the notice of old Wharton, who now rode towards him, leading a spare pony for his use. Although there was much to tell, the two rode home almost in silence, for the spell of the night was upon them, and, besides, their whole minds were absorbed in the wonderful spectacle before them.

Suddenly great flames of rosy red had risen from behind the distant mountains, and reached like the fingers of some great hand across the heavens. The whole sky was full of the rosy light, the stars had turned white and pale. The great spokes of flame seemed to tremble with heat, like the hot air round a chimney on a day in June; then gradually they grew paler and almost died out, only to flash out again directly in brighter glory. It was the Aurora Borealis!

CHAPTER XV

FOUNDING 'BULL PINE' FIRM

I must ask my readers to skip nine months or so, during which time Snap's hands were full of the varied work and sport of ranche life. It was just before the autumn round-up, and he and Nares were riding round the home ranche together. For a moment or two Nares pulled up on a bluff from which you could see far afield, and, looking out over his lands, sighed.

'I shall be sorry to leave it all,' he said, 'but I must, Snap! You did not know that I had sold the ranche?'

'Sold the ranche! No, indeed! But do you mean it?' replied Snap.

'Yes. This will be my last round-up, and I suppose I ought not to grumble. I've got to go home and look after the brewery at home. My brother's health has broken down, and I am the only other man fit for the work in the family. You know I learnt the game before I took to ranching, and, as I've made ranching pay, and sold the place and part of the herd well, I, as I said before, ought not to grumble. But,' he added after a while, 'I do. I shall leave my heart at Rosebud.'

Then they touched their horses and rode on for a while.

'Do the boys know?' asked Snap.

'No. I've told old Dick. He has known all along. I shall tell the boys, all of them, before the round-up, and of course I've made arrangements for them to stay on with the new boss if they like,' replied Nares.

'What is Dick going to do?' was the next question.

'Dick!' replied the cattle-baron; 'oh, Dick's an old fool. He says he has had one boss, but he doesn't mean to have another. He goes when I do. I think if he had any capital he would set up in a small way for himself. You see, if he takes his pay in cows, as he very likely will do, he could start from here with a little band of nearly fifty. And you, Snap, will stop on, of course?'

'I don't know. I don't think so,' replied the boy. 'I wonder——'

'Wonder! What do you wonder? What is the conundrum?' asked Nares.

'Well, just this: if Dick goes, would he take me along as a cowboy or junior partner, and would he want two more boys who would be glad to work for their grub?'

'Two more boys!' cried Nares; 'why, where are they coming from? Are you and Dick going to take all the boys off the ranche?'

'No,' answered Snap; 'but I was just going to show you this letter when you began about the sale of the ranche,' and as he said so the boy drew a very bulky packet from his pocket. 'This,' he went on, 'I got yesterday from the two Winthrops, the fellows, you know, who came out with me and stopped at Wapiti.'

'I remember,' replied Nares; 'stopped with a premium-snatcher, didn't they? Well, I suppose they have got pretty well skinned?'

'Pretty well,' replied his companion; 'but listen. I'll not read their letter, but skim it for you. Frank writes—he, you know, was the big one. He begins by "climbing down," says I was right about not paying a premium, and all that sort of thing; then he goes on to tell his story, says that Jonathan Brown's ranche was only 360 acres, all told, and his men—"foreman, cowboys, helps, labourers, &c."—all lived under one skin, and that a black one. One nigger did everything until the Winthrops came, and when they came they were expected to share the nigger's work, food, and bed.'

'Oh, come!' cried the boss, 'I call that playing the game pretty low down! Did the Winthrops stand that?'

'Well, you see, Brown had the dollars, so what could they do?' replied Snap. 'Of course they slept on the floor by themselves, but they had to do the work. They learned to split rails and make a fence, because Brown wanted his land enclosed. They learned to "do chores" because there was no one else to do them; they helped to cut the corn, and were kept at work at hay harvest until 9.30 P.M. more than once. All this they bore unmurmuringly; but it seems old Brown tells everyone that they are his "newies," that he has got them there out of charity to his sister, whose ne'er-do-weel children they are, and they don't like that; the old blackguard is always drunk, and they don't like that. There is no ranching or farming in a large way for them to learn, and they don't like that; and finally, though he has had 200l. premium and a year's labour out of them, he won't even now give them as much as he gives the nigger, and you bet they don't like that. So they are coming out here to look for work,' concluded Snap.

'The deuce, they are! Have they any money?' asked Nares.

'Not much, I should think; for, you see, they have thrown away their premium.'

'Well, I'll tell you what you had better do, if they are agreeable. Get old Dick to take you in as working partners. The old boy is very fond of you, and if you and the Winthrops could club together four or five hundred pounds from home, now that you have had some experience, and put it into a small lot of cattle, it might suit old Dick; and if it suited him, and this range of which he talks really exists, it would be a first-rate chance for you and your friends. I'll let you have the cattle cheap,' Nares concluded.

Snap had been looking very anxious during this conversation. Now his keen young face brightened. He saw a chance for himself and his friends.

'But don't you think such an arrangement would be rather unfair to Wharton?' he asked.

'No, not a bit,' answered Nares stoutly. 'You are a really good man about a ranche now, and those two boys looked really likely lads, especially that big, fair-haired fellow; and then, too, Wharton has no capital worth speaking of.'

'I'll sound him anyhow, that can do no harm,' was Snap's comment; 'the boys will be here in a day or two.'

'Very well, if they are here when the round-up is going on they can lend a hand about the camp and make themselves useful, and after that you and Wharton can go with them to find this ranche.'

'Thanks,' replied Snap, and the man and boy bent from their saddles and shook hands warmly.

If Nares was going to leave the Rosebud, Snap was not going to stay. That at any rate was clear to our hero's mind. More than that—if old Wharton would only take him into his venture there was nothing that he would like better. This, too, was clear to Snap's mind.

At the first opportunity the boy sounded old Wharton on the subject. He had not to beat about the bush long.

'Why, lad,' the old fellow cried, 'that is just what I was wanting to say to you, only I thought that the life might be a bit too hard, and the profits come mighty slowly; for you know,' he added, 'we must keep putting the income into the herd for a good many years before we draw anything out for ourselves.'

'Never mind that, Dick,' replied Snap; 'can you do with my two friends?'

'Well,' the old man answered, with anything but a cheerful face, 'I don't go much on tender-feet myself, and I don't go for to say that I make a specialty of home-reared aristocrats; but you say as they'll work and have the dollars—I guess we mout as well try 'em.'

And so that was settled. At last, after over a year, Snap wrote home a request that 200l. (half of all he possessed in this world) might be put to his credit at a Chicago bank, and advised the Winthrops to do the same.

Although strongly prejudiced against tender-feet as a class, Snap's friends were lucky enough to make a very favourable impression at Rosebud from the first, for, instead of driving over in a buggy from the railway depot, Frank and Towzer trudged in on foot, brown as berries, all their earthly goods in two small bundles which they carried on their backs, and ten dollars apiece in their pockets, earned by driving cattle up from the South, earning money by coming over two or three States on foot, instead of paying money to come on the cars.

When they first landed in America, not much more than a year before, the three lads who now stood, shaking hands and laughing, at Rosebud were fair-skinned, soft-handed lads, full of pluck, but looking to others for advice. Now they were men—hard and brown, with a quiet tone of decision in their voices, knowing how hard a dollar is to earn, and having some idea of the necessity of holding on to it when earned.

Wharton confessed that he liked the look of them, and the four set about making arrangements for their journey at once.

It seemed that years ago, when hunting in a range of mountains to the west of Rosebud, Wharton had been snowed up and obliged to winter in a certain valley which he christened Bull Pine Park, because it was surrounded by a number of Scotch firs, called 'bull pines' by the Yankees. Here, it seems, he noticed that hundreds and thousands of deer came in to winter, finding ample food and shelter in what was a sheltered basin of enormous extent, full of sweet, sun-dried, yellow grass, and protected by the shape of the land and the timber. To the old man's eye it was a type of what a range should be—a small range, that is to say—and he had kept his own counsel and waited until he had capital enough to stock his park and start on his own account. His only doubt was as to the Indians. True, he had seen none when there, or he might never have come back; but the valley was a long way from the frontier ranches, was very full of game, and on the stream which watered it he had noticed signs of what looked like a large annual fishing-camp. It was Wharton's intention, after the round-up, to revisit his valley with his three partners, to carefully reconnoitre the feeding-grounds, build a shanty, and, if possible, put up a corral, make certain about the nature and disposition of his red-skinned neighbours, and then, if all was satisfactory, return to Rosebud and drive in his cattle in the early spring.

Nares had given his old foreman leave to run his cattle and half-a-dozen of Snap's with the Rosebud herd until the spring, when the Bull Pine Firm, as Snap proudly called it, would come over to Rosebud and drive off about one hundred and twenty beasts as the nucleus of their future herd.

During the round-up the two young Winthrops won the good opinion of everyone by their reckless riding, and still more by the songs they sang over the camp fire at night. Towzer even had a banjo, the parting present of Jumbo, Jonathan Brown's black factotum, and with this he was kept uncommonly busy all night, being excused all share in the cooking arrangements in return for his music.

'Towzer, give us old Jumbo's own song,' said Frank one night, when all the old favourites had been sung more than once.

'Which?' asked Towzer, 'Jumbo had such a varied répertoire.'

'Oh, the one for Saturday night, when Brown came back drunk from the depot. You know,' he added, turning to the rest, 'this old nigger used to amuse himself by ridiculing his "boss" in nigger melodies. Play up, Towzer.'

So adjured, Towzer twisted his face into a suitable grin, and sang:

Oh, massa! him feel sickly,
    Oh, massa 'gwine to die.
Him feel so awful empty,
    Him feel so awful dry.

Oh, den he take to whisky,
    To whisky made from rye,
It make him feel so frisky,
    It make him feel so spry.

Oh, den he chuckle fit to bust,
    An' next he almoss' cry.
Dat's how de whisky's in his nose,
    De water in his eye.

'Poor old Jumbo!' added Towzer, 'unless Brown gets some more pups soon, I'm afraid he will have no time for cultivating the Muses.'

'Oh, never fear for Jumbo,' replied Nares; 'as long as there are papers to advertise in, and no way of scourging these premium-snatchers for obtaining money under false pretences, your friend Mr. Jonathan Brown will have plenty of farm-pups, and Jumbo plenty of unpaid 'helps.'

CHAPTER XVI

BEARS

The round-up was over, and the boys had all gone to their different ranges; Nares had left for England, and outside the ranche-house stood half-a-dozen ponies saddled and bridled, and tied up to the split-rail fence of the corral. Two more, loaded with flour-sacks, pots and pans, a sack of beans, and a side of bacon, stood with them. Amongst the ponies was the old Cradle, and beside him Dick Wharton's favourite horse. The Bull Pine Firm was just going to start on its travels, and Texan and 'the Judge,' as two of the other cowboys were called, had agreed to accompany the expedition and bring back the ponies after reaching the burnt-wood hills. Old Wharton had determined only to take ponies thus far, except for a couple of baggage-animals for which he carried feed, as by so doing the party would be able to make a short cut through a grassless and difficult mountain country.

As the party stood round, drinking a stirrup-cup to old Wharton's success, Texan was heard to remark:

'Say! this pison's pretty strong.'

'What's the matter with the pison, Texan? What in thunder air you grumbling at now?' said the Judge. 'I reckon it's pretty good rye, anyways.'

'Well, pard, I ain't going to quarrel with the rye; but I ain't drunk, am I? There's no skim milk got into my boots yet, is there?' asked Texan.

'Wal, no,' replied his friend, 'but what are you driving at?'

'Thet's it,' replied Texan, pointing straight overhead, 'but if I didn't think that it must be the "tangle-legs" that done it, I'd say that theer were a balloon. It ain't an eagle, anyway.'

They all looked up, and sure enough far overhead was a big round bubble, as it were, floating rapidly to the north-west. There was no doubt about it. By using their glasses they could even distinguish the car of the balloon, but even Snap's glasses (the best of the lot) could help them no further than that. They could not make out any figure in the car.

'I guess it's a runaway balloon from Chicago or St. Paul,' said Wharton, 'and kicky no one's in it, too. I wish I had the dollars that toy cost, but I reckon no one will ever catch it this side the Rockies.'

For a time they stood watching this ship of the sky drifting ever further and further from their sight, and rising, it seemed to them, ever higher and higher above the earth. At last it faded altogether from their sight, and the sky looked as calm and unruffled as if no lost bark had ever rushed through it.

'It's going our way,' said Wharton, 'pretty straight. I wonder, now, if those superstitious Johnnies one meets sometimes would call that a lucky or an unlucky omen?'

'A deuced unlucky one,' said Snap, 'if it makes us stand here talking and star-gazing any longer. We've got fifty miles between us and our night camp. Let's skip!'

It was a formidable little party which left the ranche that day. Of course, Snap and Wharton and the two Winthrops were armed for a winter campaign. Each carried a Winchester repeating-rifle, and old Wharton would not part with his six-shooter. The boys, not having been brought up to the use of six-shooters, wisely contented themselves with their rifles. Their two companions were also armed with rifles, intending to do a little hunting to supply the ranche with fresh meat on the way home.

For the first few miles the pack-animals were hurried along briskly, partly because everyone's spirits were too high to brook of a slower pace, and partly in order to give those cunning beasts no chance of returning to the home-ranche. In spite, however, of all precautions, and the careful arrangement of a diamond hitch by Texan, one of the ponies managed to get rid of his pack in the first mile. On starting, this animal, a sorrel, had appeared as fat as a brewer's horse, and, in spite of Texan's slaps and kicks, in spite of his knee planted firmly against its barrel, whilst both his strong hands tugged at the lash-rope, the sorrel's waist refused to contract an inch. Once he was fairly on his way, his corpulence vanished as if by magic. With both heels in the air, he shot through his drivers, plunged amongst some timber, dived under a fallen tree which lay across the path about three feet from the ground, left part of his load here—frying-pans without their handles, and kettles with their sides squeezed in—and then with a roll, a squeal, and a final kick left pack and pack-saddle on the track, and departed homewards.

'Guess it ain't much good following that beast,' said Wharton. 'If you don't mind, Snap, your old Cradle is about the only horse in this outfit that will carry a pack, and if you'll let us pack the load on him you can ride my pony. I'll tramp it.'

'Not a bit of it, Wharton,' replied Snap, 'I'm the youngest. I'll walk.'

'Well, we'll walk and ride in turns,' said the old man. 'I don't know that there is much more fun in riding a walking horse in this timber than in tramping it yourself.'

This being arranged, the Cradle took up the load, Snap congratulating himself that by this arrangement his old favourite would go with him all the way to winter quarters.

Upon the second evening the party camped early. You soon tire of beans and bacon, especially when you can see signs of deer on all sides, and the river looks alive with fish.

At three our friends came to an excellent little prairie of half-a-dozen acres, all bright and green with grass. Bound this little forest oasis stood tall bull pines, and across the river, which was within a stone's throw of the camping-ground, the belt of burnt-wood, at which Texan and the Judge were to turn back, commenced.

'I'll tell you what, Dick,' said Texan, 'it won't do to cross the river to-night. We'll say good-bye right here to-morrow morning, and some of us can just run round about and see if we can get any venison for dinner, whilst the others fix the camp. I'll do the camp-fixing myself, if you like. Who else will volunteer?'

Of course everyone said that they would stop and fix the camp; but eventually it was arranged that Wharton and the Judge should take one beat to the west of the camp, while Snap, with young Towzer under his wing, should go towards the east; the other two staying in camp.

The youngest Winthrop begged so hard to go that Snap took compassion on him, although he would infinitely rather have gone out alone.

The course which Snap and Towzer took led them along a fair-sized stream, which joined the main river not far from camp. Towzer had on his first pair of mocassins, and, as the forest was open and the boy light, he made very little noise as he went. Now and then, though, you might have seen him flinch and almost come down with an expression of agony upon his face. He had not yet learnt to feel with his feet, as it were, before putting them down, and had suddenly thrown all his weight on some sharp-pointed snag of dead wood, or merciless flint, which reminded him that an English shooting-boot, although noisy, has its advantages.

Stooping down by the river, Snap looked long and fixedly at a track.

'The cattle have been along here, haven't they, Snap?' asked Towzer. 'Whose cattle would they be?'

'Cattle don't eat fish, as a rule, Towzer,' replied Snap in a whisper, for some of the tracks were pretty fresh; 'and look here, the beasts which made these tracks picked these bones,' and, so saying, he held up the backbone of a large salmon, picked as clean as if it had been prepared as an anatomical specimen.

All along the bank of the stream a regular road was beaten down, one track on another, until at last all was so confused and level that Towzer's mistake was an easy one to make. But on one side of the main path Snap had been able to distinguish a few distinct and separate tracks, and it was as he looked up from one of these that he said:

'No, these aren't cattle, young 'un; these are bears, and a rare big gang of them, too.'

Towzer's first expression of delight rather faded away as he looked behind and round him, where the great bull pines stood grey and silent on all sides, and the further you peered into them the darker looked the gloom of the forest. It was not a pleasant idea that the gloomy, quiet forest might be full of unseen grizzlies.

'Are they grizzlies, do you think, Snap?' asked the boy.

'Can't say for certain,' replied that now experienced hunter, 'but I expect there are some of all sorts about. You see the river is full of salmon, which have run up to spawn, and the bears are down here for the fishing season.'

Leaving the river, Snap and his friend crossed two or three deep dingles, or, as they would call them in America, little canyons, and in half an hour's time were creeping very cautiously along the brow of a ridge through the big trees, on which the light of the sun gleamed redly. That sun was now low in the skies, and every moment Snap expected to catch sight of a stately stag tossing his head and leading his hinds in single file from the timber to the feeding-grounds.

'Halloo,' whispered he, suddenly holding up his hand as a sign for silence to Towzer, 'what is the matter with the robber-birds?'

Towzer listened. A lot of birds just over the ridge were chattering noisily, like jays in an English covert when the beaters are coming through. Snap signed to the boy to follow, and both crept cautiously to the top of the ridge.

On the very top was a kind of table-land, and, looking through the trees with their backs to the sun, neither of our friends could see anything. Creeping back again, Snap ran along the hill and came up to the top of the ridge again in such a position as to have the noisy jays between himself and the sinking sun. For a moment he could still see nothing. Then a stick cracked under his companion's foot, and the quick movement of a dark mass in amongst the pines caught and arrested his attention. He had never seen a grizzly before, but he needed no one to tell him what the great brute was before him, with its whole body on the alert to detect the source of the sound it had heard.

The sun threw a red glow on the scene, which looked like blood about the body of the deer on which the grizzly was feeding. The brute had his claws on his victim's shoulder, from which he was tearing strips of flesh as he lay muttering and growling by its side. As the twig cracked he rose and sat looking over his shoulder in the direction from which the sound came.

Snap remembered old Wharton's words as he looked at the bear: 'Thet's about his favourite position when he once glimpses you, and don't know whether to come or go; but don't you shoot then, there's nothing to hit but his jaw or his shoulder, and you won't kill him quick enough to be safe that way.' Remembering these words, Snap kept his hand off his rifle and waited until the bear should give him a better chance; but before this happened there was a report, which deafened our hero, right by his ear; the bear spun round with a roar, and then stood tearing at the ground and tossing the earth in the air in a paroxysm of rage.

Snap hardly dared to breathe, but if his words were inaudible his lips seemed to say to the reckless youngster beside him, 'Keep still for your life, he may not see you.'

Neither of the boys was well hidden—in fact, Snap was not hidden at all; but by remaining rigid, as if he was cut out of stone, the short-sighted beast did not distinguish him from the pines around him. Luckily, too, he did not notice the smoke curling from Towzer's rifle.

To the boys the bear was plain enough with his back to the sunlight; but they themselves were in shadow.

'Good heavens, there's another!' cried Towzer, in a whisper so audible that the huge, shaggy beast which the unfortunate boy had wounded dropped on all fours and came a dozen yards towards them, stopping again with his sharp, fierce snout in the air, trying to catch the wind of his unseen enemies.

At that moment Snap gave all up as lost, for not only had he seen the bear which had drawn the exclamation from Towzer, but he had seen two other great grey forms amongst the timber on his right. Gripping the boy's arm with nervous hand, he drew him down beside him:

'Towzer, is there any tree on your left that you could get up in less than ten seconds to save your life?'

Snap's white-drawn face showed that he was in earnest, and Towzer looked desperately round. Like Snap, he had spent many a half-holiday at Fernhall birds'-nesting, and with climbing-irons to help him there were very few trees which he could not have climbed in time; but to climb a tree in ten seconds for your life is quite another matter.

'There, there's the best,' cried Snap out loud, pointing to a young bull pine with a lot of short stumps of branches not far from the ground. Of course, they might break off, and then it would be only a bare pole to swarm; but it was the smallest tree, and the best chance, for all that.

'Now run,' shouted Snap, 'run for your life, and don't look back,' and as he spoke he pushed the boy from him and jumped up.

With a roar that sounded like a curse, it was so human in its rage, the bear saw both boys, and half turned towards the running figure. In that moment Snap's rifle rang out and the bear rolled over.

He knew, without looking, that the others had seen him; and one was charging straight at him, while with low, angry growls the other two had trotted into the open. A glance showed him Towzer halfway up his tree. And yet all this was seen at once without an effort, whilst all his strength and attention was devoted to pumping up another cartridge into his Winchester repeater.

There is only one fault in these excellent weapons, and that is a terrible one. In some of the old-fashioned commoner rifles of this sort the cartridges occasionally get jammed. This had happened now to Snap. His rifle had jammed, the empty cartridge would not come out, and there he stood defenceless with a charging bear almost on the top of him.

Grasping the barrel with both hands, he had just time to hurl the useless weapon with all his strength at the head of the grizzly and spring to one side. He had a glimpse of a devilish head, with ears laid back, and fiery eyes, and long white fangs gleaming from a shaggy mass of grey fur, going over him at railroad speed. Instinctively he had rolled away as he fell, as a rider rolls from a fallen horse, and the pace of the bear's charge and the downward slope of the ground had taken the heavy beast past the prostrate boy.

In a moment Snap was on his legs again, and, dodging behind the first tree he came to, he scrambled up it.

'Hurry, Snap, hurry!' shrieked Towzer in a voice of agony, and just as our hero drew up his foot he heard a snort almost against his heel, and a tearing sound as a great flake of bark was torn from the stem of the pine by the claws of the bear.

It was a sight to make any man's flesh creep which met the boy's eyes when he looked down from a point of safety some twenty feet up the pine. Reared on end, his huge claws stretching upwards, his red jaws open, muttering and moaning after the prey which had escaped him, one of the bears leaned against the pine to which Snap clung. Two others, growling from time to time, prowled round and round the foot of the tree, and in the middle of the little plateau the wounded bear kept up a succession of moans and growls as it struggled to its feet and fell back again time after time, dying, but bent on vengeance still.

Towzer was safe in his tree. Snap's rifle lay broken on the ground, and Towzer's with a dozen undischarged cartridges in it lay not far from the wounded bear. 'Ah!' Snap thought, 'if I only had that here!' Towzer, of course, in his desperate flight had thrown away his arms. Even had he had a sling to his rifle it would hardly have been possible to climb with it, and without a sling, and with a grizzly's teeth and claws behind, Towzer did well to drop his weapon and trust to speed and Snap's self-devotion.

'Snap,' Towzer called from his tree, 'I don't think much of this. I can't hold on very long. Are those brutes likely to wait long?'

'All night, I should think,' replied Snap.

This seemed too much for Winthrop, and a silence ensued; the boys clinging desperately to their uncomfortable perches, and the bears prowling up and down like sentries on their beat.

This went on for nearly an hour, and there was no change, and seemed likely to be none. The sun's last red glow was on the forest floor; the uncertain light made the great grey forms which went so silently backwards and forwards look even more horrible and monstrous to the eyes of their hapless victims, but two at any rate of the three were still on guard.

'Let's try a shout for help,' said Towzer; 'all together, Snap!'

'Coo-èy! coo-èy!' cried the boys, and as they cried the great grey forms paused in their silent walk, and sent a chorus of hollow growls to swell the sound. Other growls from the forest shadows, too, told the boys that, though they could only see the wounded bear and another, the others were not far off.

By-and-by the moon rose, and a silver light showed the scene in new and horrible distinctness. The one bear was dead. Stark and stiff he lay by his last victim, and silver light and ebon shadow were distributed evenly over the bodies of bear and stag, murderer and murdered.

A breaking bough and a quick scraping sound broke the silence.

'By Jove, that was a shave!' panted Towzer's young voice.

'What are you at, you little idiot?' cried Snap.

'Jolly nearly fell out of this tree,' replied the boy.

'Went to sleep, I suppose?' said Snap in a tone of disgust.

'I don't know about that,' said Towzer, in a piteous tone, 'but I cannot hold on to these clothes-pegs much longer.'

The clothes-pegs were the short stumps of boughs to which the boy had been clinging.

'Snap, couldn't we make a fight of it? I want my supper,' added Towzer, 'and there's only one bear now.'

'How are we to fight? I've got no rifle, and without that you are more likely to satisfy the bear's appetite than your own,' replied Snap.

'Well, I'll tell you what,' said the reckless youngster, 'I can't stay up here all night if you can, and, if you are game to come down and try for that rifle, I am.'

'How do you mean? The bear would get you before you could get to it. Look at him watching you now. Nice, pleasant face for a photograph, hasn't he?' added Snap.

In spite of the danger and the eeriness of the whole thing, Towzer laughed as he saw the great brute sitting half upright on its hams, its ears cocked sharply up to listen.

'I don't suppose the old brute will understand English,' said Towzer, 'so look here! My tree is an easy one to get up. I can almost swing myself out of a bear's reach from the ground. If you will be ready I'll come down and draw the brute after me. Whilst he hunts me to my tree you dash in and get my rifle. If you are quick and lucky you'll get back before he twigs you. Why, it will be just like prisoner's base, when we were first-form boys at the Dame's school.

'Yes,' muttered Snap, 'with our lives for forfeit if we are caught! Well, all right, Towzer,' he cried aloud, 'are you sure you can get back safely?'

'Yes, never mind me,' sang out Towzer; 'look here!'

And, sliding down, the boy just touched the ground, and as the bear rose swung himself back again, chuckling, 'Don't you wish you may get it?'

'All right, then, if you have made up your mind let us do it now; give me a moment to slide down close to the ground,' shouted Snap; 'keep the bear looking at you for a moment.'

'All right,' answered the young 'un, rattling about amongst the bushes with his leg as he hung from the lowest bough of his tree.

The bear was up, and coming slowly towards Towzer, growling horribly. The boy's blood ran cold, but he had given his word to Snap, and he did not mean to go back.

'Now!' shouted Snap.

At the cry the bear turned round towards Snap, and as he did so Towzer dropped to the ground and ran forward into the open with a shout.

For a moment the bear hesitated, then, with a roar that shook the pines, dashed at him. Towzer turned, and never in all his life, not even when he made his celebrated 'run-in' for the school-house with the football under his arm, did he go so fast or dodge so nimbly as he did that night.

As Towzer turned, Snap's lithe figure slipped noiselessly through the moonlight, and, not daring to look at anything else, dashed straight at the rifle.

Did the dead bear move, or was it only fancy? Fancy, surely! And now he had his hand on the rifle and turned to see a ghastly sight. Towzer stretched up at his bough and missed it. The bear was just behind, there was no time for another effort, and the boy was driven past his one chance of safety. Catching at the trunk of a big bull pine, Towzer swung round it, dodged the bear, and once more tried for his tree. This time he reached the bough, but even then, blown as he was, the bear must have reached and pulled him down, had not a ball from Snap's rifle broken the brute's spine as he reared up on end to make his attack.

Utterly spent, Towzer dropped back beside the bear and staggered across to where Snap still lay, his rifle resting on the body of the first bear, from behind which he had just fired. Together the boys sat and looked at one another, too shaken and tired to speak.

At last, Towzer, looking anxiously round, said, 'Those others won't come back, will they?'

'I don't know; if they do, I hope they will put us out of our misery quickly. I didn't know that I had any nerves before, but they are jumping like peas in a frying-pan to-night. Let's go.'

And very cautiously they went, creeping through the dim aisles of the forest, starting at every sound, and far more frightened at the meeting than was even the big stag which met them face to face just before they got clear of the timber. They never even thought of firing at him, although he was so fair a shot, and his great sides shook with inches of fat, until the camp-fire shone through the trees, and then it was too late to remember that they had gone out for venison and come back without any.

'Well, Towzer, I suppose we must put up with beans and bacon again to-night—unless,' with a grin, 'you'd care to go down and catch us a salmon, or fetch a steak from the dead stag up there,' said Snap, pointing back over his shoulder.

But Towzer had had enough sport for one day, and did not volunteer; and, indeed, it was not necessary, for the others had killed a hind, and the boys told their story in short, broken sentences, with a savoury rib in one hand and a pannikin of tea in the other. They almost thought bear-shooting good sport by the time they had finished supper.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE BRÛLÊ

That was a very beautiful camp and a merry night, that last night with the cowboys from Rosebud. The fire they had made was what they called a nor'-wester. Timber was plentiful—to be had, indeed, for the felling—and the men left in camp had found it better fun to swing an axe than to do nothing. So whole trees lay across the fire, and huge tongues of flame kept leaping out and shooting into the darkness. Every now and then a log broke, and the ends fell in with a crash, the flames roared more fiercely than ever, and a shower of red sparks went away on the wind.

The men left in camp, being in a luxurious mood and having lots of time on their hands, had run up a shelter of boughs—two great props and a crosspiece, with a lot of underbrush sloping from this ridge-pole to the ground. Under this, with their feet to the fire, lay the men smoking.

'Wal, Dick,' said the Judge, 'I reckon I don't owe you no grudge. You've been a good pal to us, and I hope, mate, you'll strike it rich where you're a-goin'.'

'Them's my sentiments to a dot,' said Texan, 'and if those boys of yourn don't get their har raised by grizzly or Injun before they're six months older, I shouldn't be much surprised if you made cowboys of them.'

'Thank you, Texan, old chap,' laughed Snap. 'If you don't do any more mining amongst those gopher-holes before I come back, I'll bet you my best saddle that the Cradle and I lick your head off at any distance you like on old "Springheels."

The laugh, for a moment, went against Texan, for in the round-up just over it was commonly stated as a fact that, whilst riding at full pace down a hill after cattle, his pony had put its foot in one gopher-hole and shot its owner into another, from which, five minutes later, he was extracted by a comrade, who said that he had found Texan 'growing anyhow, just planted root up'ards in a gopher-hole!'

'There's one thing agin you, Dick, and that's the weather,' remarked the Judge; 'for all it's so fine now, I don't half like that fringe round the moon.'

'No, it does look watery, doesn't it?' said old Dick, looking up; 'but, hang it all, don't let us croak. Hand me another of those fish, Snap, if you can spare one. Bust me! if you don't eat half-pound trout as if they was shrimps,' he added.

'There's summat I'm thinking,' said Texan after a pause, 'that's worse nor weather. I don't want to croak, Dick, but air you sure about them Injuns? I kem acrost their fishing-camp to-day, and there isn't a soul in it. Do you calculate as they're on the war-path?'

'Not they!' replied Dick; 'a Crow won't face a Blackfoot nowadays, and, unless they're stealing horses or killing cattle, they aren't doing any harm, you bet.'

'How!'

It was a sound between a human voice and a dog's bark, sharp, hoarse, and guttural, and it appeared to proceed from the ground under Snap's seat. Snap was round as if a wasp had stung him. There had been no sound behind the camp-fire; no dry twig had cracked, no leaf rustled; and yet there was this sudden 'How!' and behind Snap stood, stiff and silent, a tall, grim-looking Redskin.

A sort of pointed hat of rush was on his head, through the band of which an eagle's plume had been stuck; round his shoulders was a bright-coloured blanket, and wide trousers of deer-skin, with long fringes of the same down the seams, reached to his ankles.

'Not a beauty,' Snap thought, and he moved a little uneasily away from the stranger, who stood quietly staring at the group.

The Indian was certainly not a beauty, even for an Indian. His hair was sleek and black—'snaky' Towzer called it. His eyes were small and set close together in a big bull-like head, and he was hare-lipped. His face, too, was full of lines and wrinkles. He was as old as the hills apparently, but old as the oaks grow old—strong and rugged, and nowhere near being worn out.

'How!' said Dick, and he rose and gave the chief his hand, and offered him a seat on his blanket, which he took.

'Do you speak English?' asked Snap as the Indian sat beside him, but the only answer he got was a stony stare.

'I guess he does, for all that,' whispered Texan; 'these beggars never let on how much they know. Say, Dick, you talk their lingo; ask him where he comes from.'

So adjured, old Dick Wharton supplied his guest with fish, bread, and tea, all of which he took without a word, and then Dick began to question him.

The Indians had broken up their fishing-camp, the Redskin said; their medicine-man had advised them to. Oh, yes, it was a good season, and there were lots of fish there yet, but the medicine-man had seen a bird, and the tribe could not stay any longer.

'Seen a bird!' cried old Wharton; 'well, I reckon he sees a good many birds in a day; but what kind of a bird was this to frighten the whole tribe from fishing and gambling?'

'The tribe was not frightened, O white-skin,' replied the Indian with dignity; 'but they knew that the bird which Teeveevex saw was the bird of doom, which preys on the tribes of men, and the Crows have hidden until the danger is passed.'

'But what sort of a bird is the bird of doom?' persisted Wharton.

'Only Teeveevex has seen it,' replied the chief, 'but its white wings are as the clouds which contain the rain-storms, and it rushes through the sky like a star falling from its throne.'

'Bunkum!' muttered Texan, and, low as he muttered it, a spark seemed suddenly to kindle and as suddenly to die out in the watchful eye of the savage. 'I'll bet the Blackfeet are going to have a lively time of it, unless they're going to do a bit of horse-stealing at Rosebud.'

'What is the name by which the braves call you?' asked Wharton.

'The men call me the Great White Rabbit,' replied the chief proudly.

'Not a bad name either for a hare-lipped one,' muttered Frank.

The Indian could not have understood what was meant, but he saw the smile, and gave Frank one of his ugly looks.

That sturdy young Englishman stared coolly at him, remarking to Snap, 'It's an engaging young thing when it's pleased, isn't it, Snap? And, oh Lord, what a mouth for a fish dinner!' he added as the savage filled up the vacuum between his jaws with about half a pound of trout.

'Ask him how old he is,' said Snap, and Wharton repeated the question.

The chief thought for a moment, and then held up five fingers solemnly.

'Oh, you be hanged!' cried Towzer. 'Why, the beggar's laughing at us. A nice, tender, five-year-old you are, aren't you, my beauty?' And the boys laughed in concert.

'He is right enough, though,' said Wharton; 'with these chaps each finger stands for ten, and I don't suppose that he is more than fifty.'

After eating everything which the whites had left, and begging for a charge or two of powder, the cowboys' visitor got up and left without a word either of thanks or adieu.

'Well,' said Towzer, 'that twopence which I presume our friend's mamma, Mrs. Doe Rabbit, spent on her son's manners doesn't appear to have been a good investment.'

'Lord bless you, you don't expect thanks from an Injun, do you?' remarked Wharton; 'like enough that chap will put a ball in you if he gets a chance, and I should be very much surprised if either of your grizzlies has its hide on to-morrow. If it has, old Buck Rabbit, or whatever he calls himself, won't be to blame, you bet!'

And sure enough, when Snap and Texan went up next morn (rather late, it is true), both bear-skins had gone, and the place, so Texan said, 'stunk of Injuns.'

When Snap and Texan got back without their bear-skins old Wharton had the ponies packed, and 'the Judge' had made all preparations for a start.

'So Buck Rabbit got those skins, did he?' asked Wharton. 'Well, I'll forgive him, whatever Snap says, if that's all the hair he raises this fall.'

'Yes, you may say that,' Texan added grimly. 'I've been here some while now, but I never knowed those Crows give up their summer gamble, and bust me if I think they'll feel inclined to lie idle now that they have been skeered out of their fishing-camp.'

'That being so,' said Dick, 'it seems to me you mout as well lead them off our trail a bit. Don't let them sight you between this and Rosebud, and maybe, if Buck Rabbit didn't count the horses, he'll think, when he sees the trail of all them ponies, that we've all gone back to Rosebud.'

'And how about Rosebud, Dick?' asked Texan.

'Oh, I reckon Rosebud can look after itself, leastways it could when I was theer,' replied the old foreman; and Texan and the Judge nodded approvingly, and murmured with emphasis 'You bet!'

'Then you'll be back in spring for the cows?' asked Texan.

'Well, we'll do our possible,' replied Wharton, busy with the Cradle's lash-rope; 'if we don't turn up you'll understand that we're wiped out, and "the boys" can divide my band amongst 'em.'

'The boys won't none of 'em hanker after their share of that band, Dick,' replied Texan, shaking the old man's hand. 'Good luck to you!'

'So long!' cried the Judge. 'Keep your eyes skinned at night, pard!'