OLD RUFF, THE TRAPPER;
OR,
THE YOUNG FUR-HUNTERS.
A SEQUEL TO “LITTLE RIFLE.”
BY CAPT. “BRUIN” ADAMS,
AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POCKET NOVELS:
No. 9. Lightning Jo.
No. 74. Little Rifle.
NEW YORK.
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
CONTENTS
I “Give Us Your Hand on That” 9
II Doubt and Perplexity 14
III The Reds 20
IV Between Two Fires 25
V A Wonderful Animal 30
VI What the Telescope Revealed 35
VII Down the River 40
VIII “Speckled Beauty” in Camp 45
IX Through the Cascade Range 50
X A Brute’s Sacrifice 55
XI Unwelcome Visitors 60
XII The Revelation of Maquesa 66
XIII Counterplotting 71
XIV Down the Columbia 76
XV The Sea Trail 79
XVI The Wind That Blew No Good 81
XVII What of the Night? 85
XVIII Waiting for the End 87
XIX The Leap for Life 92
XX Conclusion 95
OLD RUFF, THE TRAPPER;
OR,
THE YOUNG FUR-HUNTERS.
CHAPTER I.
“GIVE US YOUR HAND ON THAT.”
Young Harry Northend remained by his lonely camp-fire in the wilderness,
long after the dull, dismal day had dawned, in the hope that Little
Rifle, his promised bride of the wilderness, as he loved to look upon
her, would return.[1]
Now and then he ventured to call to her, although he well knew the risk
he incurred in doing so; for he had learned by his previous experience
that the dreaded Blackfeet Indians were to be expected at any time, when
beyond gun-shot of the fort.
The snow had stopped falling, but it lay to the depth of several inches
upon the ground, and seemed to have extended over a wide area of
country. He walked round and round the camp several times, searching for
the imprint of her delicate moccasin; but the keenest search he could
make failed to reveal the slightest trace of her footsteps.
This proved, that whatever might be the cause of her disappearance, it
had operated before the fall of the snow—so that, at the least, she had
already been absent several hours.
But whither had she gone? What was the cause of her disappearing so
suddenly? Had she departed alone and unattended, or was some one else
concerned in it?
These were questions which, without exaggeration, it is safe to say, the
lad asked himself a hundred times, and which still remained unanswered.
There was but one conjecture that he could make, which seemed to bear
the least shadow of reason, and that was that she had voluntarily
returned to the lodge of her guardian and friend, old Ruff Robsart, the
old mountaineer and hunter—not with the intention of remaining there,
but with the purpose of consulting with him before taking the
all-important step which she had decided to take, in leaving that Oregon
wilderness.
“It is no great distance there,” he mused, as he turned this thought
over in his mind, “and seeing me asleep in the early part of the
evening, she may have thought she could go and return before I would
awake; for she can traverse these woods as well in the dark as in the
daytime, and she might easily have made such a journey, but I suppose
old Robsart has kept her, and I must go there after her.”
Settling down to this conclusion, he decided first to go on to the fort,
as he could make the distance in a few hours. He had been absent several
days, and his return would set at rest any uneasiness that his friends
might feel, and possibly avert the awkward consequences of a search for
him by several of the hunters at the post.
Accordingly, when he had made up his mind that it was useless to wait
any longer by the camp-fire, he slung his rifle over his shoulder, and
started at a brisk walk for his headquarters at Fort Abercrombie, which
was safely reached within a couple of hours after.
He found every thing here as when he had left, a few days before, and
after partaking of breakfast, and remaining a short time, he started on
his return to the lodge of Old Ruff, on the Columbia river, below. On
the route, he visited the scene of their encampment in the ravine, the
night before, thinking it barely possible that Little Rifle had visited
it during her absence, but there were no indications of her having done
so, and he resumed his walk in an eastward direction.
Harry set great value by his field telescope, which he constantly bore
with him, and whenever he reached a point a little more elevated than
usual, he acted like a General who was reconnoitering a hostile
territory—making as careful a survey as was possible, in the limited
time which his impatience would permit him to use.
Scarcely once did the glass fail to show him the presence of Indians.
They seemed to be here, there and everywhere in this part of Oregon, and
the adjoining territory of Washington. Indeed, more than once he paused
and scrutinized more closely his immediate surroundings, for it seemed
that there must be more still nearer him; but happily he seemed to be
free from that danger, and he took care to conceal his trail as much as
possible, by using rocks and flinty surfaces, wherever he could turn
them to account.
In this fashion he finally reached a ridge, upon which Little Rifle had
slain an antelope, on the preceding day. Here he made another survey of
the territory, in every direction, wondering all the time whether any of
the numerous “signs” which he encountered indicated the presence of
Little Rifle; for despite the theory into which he had settled, he could
not free himself of the doubt that, after all, he might have failed in
his supposition.
This naturally increased his eagerness to hurry forward, and end the
suspense as soon as possible; and so, lingering but a short time upon
the ridge, he descended the eastern slope, and carefully following the
route taken the morning before, being compelled on his way to ford
several streams, he succeeded in reaching his destination at last.
It was very near the hour of noon when he did so, and the mild warm sun
had completely dissipated the snow that had fallen the previous night.
Here and there the leaves were wet, and on the shady side of a rock he
occasionally detected a white tuft of the cold feathery snow, but it may
be said, that if unaware of the fact, no one would have believed what a
fierce flurry had occurred but a few hours before.
As Harry entered the ravine, in which the odd, fantastic home of old
Robsart was located, while gathering peltries, he found his heart
beating violently and his face flushing, as is the case when one walks
forward to hear his doom pronounced by the stern and inflexible judge.
“Suppose she has not returned,” he repeated to himself, “what will he
say? What will he do? What will I do?”
The next moment the little compact dwelling-house—if such it may be
termed—was in sight, and before the entrance he saw the old mountaineer,
engaged in cleaning the skins of several animals, preparatory to
stretching them out on sticks in the sun to prepare them for packing.
He merely glanced up as he heard him coming, and then, without speaking
or making any salutation, continued his work. Harry advanced resolutely
forward, and, determined to know the worst at once, said:
“Good-day, Uncle Ruff. Has Little Rifle returned?”
The trapper, seemingly suspecting that something was wrong, suddenly
started and looked up with a sharp, inquiring glance. Next moment came
his answer, too clear and direct for any mistake:
“I haven’t sot eyes on him sense you and him went away yesterday.”
“Then Heaven only knows what has become of _her_!” exclaimed Harry, in
the very wretchedness of despair, as he sat down upon a log and covered
his face with his hands. “She went away in the night, and I can not tell
why it was she left.”
The sharp-eared trapper noticed the peculiar way in which the lad
referred to Little Rifle, and, ceasing his work and walking to where he
was seated, he demanded:
“What do you mean, younker, by calling Little Rifle _her_? What are yer
thinking ’bout?”
It had not been the intention of Harry Northend to reveal the
revelations of last night in this fashion; indeed he had not settled in
his mind that he was going to reveal it at all; but now, as he had given
the all-important hint in his ill-guarded speech, there was nothing left
for him to do except to make a clean breast of it.
And this was done. He told the story from beginning to end, even to the
declaration of love that he had made to Little Rifle, and her partial
confession of the same; he referred particularly to her tender regard
for Uncle Ruff, and her determination to consult him before leaving the
wilderness for a civilized life, which declaration caused him to believe
that she had absented herself for that purpose. He related, too, their
conversation and plans regarding the future, especially the project he
had framed of her being taken in charge by his father and educated.
Harry saw from the first that Robsart was to be the main character in
rescuing Little Rifle; that scarcely any thing could be done without his
assistance, and so he told the whole truth, keeping back nothing that
came into his mind.
And it was a wise thing upon his part. Old Ruff had liked the lad from
the first, and his rather annoying _surveillance_ of him during the
preceding day was merely an attempt to satisfy himself as to whether the
lad suspected any thing of the secret of the sex of his _protege_. Such
was his course toward any one who was accidentally thrown into their
company, and his greater regard for his charge, naturally made him
willing to see any one depart after he had spent a little time with
them.
But what a tale was it that the lad told him! Here was a clew, or a
partial one, to the very mystery which he had vainly sought to unravel
for a dozen years.
He had learned her true name—the name of her father—the fact that she
had no mother living, and the name of the chief in whose charge she had
been placed, and that a few years ago would have been sufficient for him
to have learned all, for he knew her earliest protector, Maquesa, the
Blackfoot, very well, and had encountered him more than once, without
suspecting that he ever had any thing to do with the little waif, which
was taken from a lodge far up in the country.
“Now, Uncle Ruff,” said Harry, after he had completed the narration, “I
have told you every thing I know, and I have come to you for help. How
do you feel about it?”
The old, hairy-faced bear-tamer stretched out his broad, horny palm and
grasped that of the lad with a warm and almost crushing grip.
“I liked you the fust time I seen you, and you’ve come to me in such a
squar’ fashion that I like you more than ever—so give us your hand on
it.
“Heaven only knows what has become of Little Rifle—I don’t; but we do
know that she is somewhar above ground, and you and me are going to
diskiver her—so give us your hand on it.
“I’ve been puzzling my head fur the last six months to try and lay out
some course to take with that little pet of mine but it was mighty hard
to fix on any thing. As I see’d her growing up without civilized ways, I
felt I warn’t doing right, but I kept putting things off, ’cause I
didn’t know what I orter to do. Of course it war my place to take her
into the settlements somewhar and give her a fair start: _that_ I could
see plain enough, but the trouble war that I hadn’t any of the sort of
acquaintances that I wanted to put her among. You can see she’s purty,
and she’s getting purtier every week, and the fear that haunted me was
that if I took her down to Fr’isco or Sacramento, or some of them other
places, she might be ruined, and I’d rather keep her here till she died,
than to feel that I’d had any thing to do in bringing about that sort of
business.
“But the plan that you’ve got up, in that smart head of yours, is jist
the thing, and Providence put it there! Nothin’ on airth could have
pleased me more; if the little pet war only here I’d give a war-whoop
and dance. We’re going to set out to find her, and we’re going to find
her, and when she’s found she’s going East with you and your father, and
when you both get old enough she’s going to be your wife, and I’m going
to be your grandmother—no your grandaddy I mean—so give us your hand on
it ag’in!”