FLITTING SHADOWS.
Little Rifle struck off homeward, like one who feels that he has little
time at his disposal. After walking full a mile, he struck another
stream smaller than the first and which was a tributary to the one he
had just left. The banks were made up principally of rocks and gravel,
over which it was very easy to pass, without leaving any trail behind.
The lad made his way over these, with the care of a veteran hunter and
at length stepped down between two rocks, that towered fully twenty
feet from the ground. Between them was a passage of about a rod in
width, which gradually narrowed as he advanced, until he was checked
by what seemed an insuperable obstruction; but this in reality was the
cabin, the “home,” toward which he had been journeying.
It was made with very little regard to “style;” the rocks themselves
afforded the rear, and two sides. The roof was constructed by laying
saplings and branches across the top and covering them with leaves
and twigs to such a depth that they afforded an impervious protection
against the inclemency of the weather. The interior was divided into
two apartments, the partition being formed, mainly like the front, of
buffalo and bear-skins, firmly fastened to poles.
Thus a secure and comfortable retreat was afforded, no matter how great
the cold might be. Within were piles of the richest and choicest furs,
including those of the beaver, otter, fox, marten, bear and buffalo.
Some of these were exceedingly valuable, being rich, glossy and of
velvety softness; for Old Robsart was as thorough a trapper as he was a
hunter, and he had a collection of peltries already secured, that, when
put in the market at San Francisco, would bring him a little fortune in
its way. The furs were all the best of their kind, for he was too good
a connoisseur to accept any of a second-rate quality. Many a time, he
took the beaver out of the trap, examined him a moment, and then let
him go in peace, until he could get in better condition, by which time,
also, the sagacious animal was sure to be cute enough to keep clear
of all contrivances intended to entrap him, all of which Old Robsart
could not fail to know, but which did not affect his line of conduct,
as there were surely a thousand times more fur bearing creatures in the
North-west, than a regiment of trappers like him could hope to capture.
No fire was ever kindled within this primitive home; for these downy
furs kept so much of the natural heat of the body that the most
cold-blooded need not be uncomfortable. The fire needed for cooking
purposes was always made somewhere else.
Little Rifle’s anxiety now was to see whether his friend and patron
was at home before him. Knowing that there was always a possibility of
some treacherous red-skin lying in wait, in the cabin, he paused when
some distance away, and gave utterance to a sort of whistle that was
always used as a signal between him and his friend.
To his delight, this signal was instantly answered from within the
cabin.
“He is there!” he exclaimed, running forward, along the gorge. “Hello,
Uncle Ruff!”
The round full moon was shining from an unclouded sky, so that objects
were seen quite distinctly for a considerable distance. As he spoke,
the form of a man of goodly size, with immense flowing beard, drew the
buffalo-skin that answered for a door aside, and stepped outside. His
dress was somewhat similar to that worn by the lad, except that instead
of his jaunty hat, he wore a close-fitting cap of fur. He was a man
of great strength and activity, and seemed to be in the very prime of
vigorous manhood, although evidently verging on his sixty years.
“Wal, my little pet, you’re back again,” he said, as he looked kindly
down upon the lad, and reached out both his hands to grasp his. “Hello!
You’ve got two guns have you? What does that mean? Have you been
assassinating some traveling gunsmith?”
“No, Uncle Ruff, I took that from a Blackfoot Indian.”
“Found him asleep, I s’pose, with that ’ere piece hung up at the head
of his bed.”
“No I didn’t, either,” continued Little Rifle, parrying the taunts of
the grim old hunter, who always delighted in quizzing him. “I took it
away from a red-skin that was wide awake as you are.”
“Oh, that’s it; I s’pose he’d been eating green persimmon or tough
babies, that give him the chollywobbles so as to double him up with
pain, and make him not care whether you took his gun, or his head. Why
didn’t you bring his scalp? ’Cause he wouldn’t let you, I s’pose. Let
me take a look at the gun and see whether it’s good for any thing.”
After turning it over very deliberately in his hands for several
minutes, trying the lock and seeing that it was loaded, he pronounced
it a “tollyble weapon.” And then, throwing aside his jesting words, he
asked Little Rifle to give him the particulars of his encounter with
the red-skin, and listened with great attention until he had finished.
“You behaved like a hero,” was the comment of old Robsart, when he had
finished, “and I think have fairly ’arned your supper. Ef you keep on
improving at this rate, I’ll make a hunter of you in the course of
seventy-five or eighty, or ninety or a hundred years. Come in to the
banquet.”
Little Rifle was as “hungry as a bear,” and he accepted the invitation
on the instant. Drawing the buffalo-robe aside, he saw a tempting,
luscious supper awaiting him upon a ledge of rock, about a foot from
the ground, on the center of which sat a lamp, giving out quite a clear
light from the oil that the old hunter himself had extracted from some
of the animals he had captured in his traps. Without loss of time, the
two sat down, and began devouring the meal, chatting in the meanwhile,
like old friends who had not seen each other for many days.
“I’ve been on quite a tramp sence yesterday,” said Old Ruff, with his
cheeks swelling out with the juicy meat. “I went a good many miles up
the stream, and I used my eyes.”
“Did you find the beavers any more plenty, than they are here?”
“Yes; ten thousand times, that is figgertively speakin’, as the
preachers down in the settlements say. Peltries is plenty, but as is
ginerally the case, the red-skins are as thick as grasshoppers, and
they kept me dodgin’ round like a bull in fly time. We’ve got to send
down to Fr’isco, for a lot of lamps to carry ’round at night, so as to
keep from tumbling over ’em, and when we ride our hosses toward the
fort, we’ve got to set a lamp on each ear to keep ’em from stepping
onto ’em. I think I mashed a dozen or two of ’em, without knowing it,
’cause I mind me now that I stepped onto something, two or three times,
that felt kind of soft.”
“They are strange creatures, Uncle Ruff, and I can’t understand why
they should hate the whites worse than they hate the rattlesnake under
their feet.”
“I s’pose ’cause the whites feel just as lovely toward them. You see
it’s a squar’ deal all round.”
“I know but I can’t see any reason in it. There was that Blackfoot
to-day. He must have seen me when I climbed up on a high rock to take
a look at the surrounding country, and the very minute he saw me, that
very minute he went to work to get my scalp. They are a strange people.”
The scarred face of Old Ruff expanded into a quaint smile, as he looked
fondly down in the countenance of the lad, and listened to his words.
Then, laying the long, bony finger of his right hand into the palm of
his left, as if to call special attention to his utterances, he said:
“Yas, younker, you’re right. I’ve hunted wild animiles, and fit
Injins for a good many years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that
the red-skin is a qu’ar critter, and it takes a good while afore a
feller understands him. Some chaps come out here fur a few weeks, and
think they’ve got the hang of things, when they don’t know no more
about copper-skins, than my grandmother does about tannin’ grizzly
b’ars. You know they ginerally call the Injin red, but when he gits
on the war-path, he’s allers a ‘yeller.’ They believe in spooks, and
when the spirit moves ’em, they move the spirits. They don’t like
crooked paths, and generally take every thing straight; they are very
hospitable, and often treat their captives to a hot stake. This is very
touching, ’specially to the captive. They’re purty good shots, as you
know yourself, Little Rifle, ’cause you’ve see’d ’em shoot the rapids;
they are good on drawing a long bow, but often take an arrow view of
things, and I knowed an old chief once that lived half the time upon
arrow-root. Some younkers like you think an Injin is the very beau
ideal of a man, as they say down in the settlements; but sence they’ve
larned the use of guns, they’ve hung up the fiddle and the bow, which
must harrow the feelin’s of the varmints a powerful heap. My nephew
that knows how to read books, calls him ‘Lo, the poor Injin,’ and I
agree with him, for ef thar’s any lower critters in all creation, I’ve
never see’d ’em. Sometimes you can tame an Injin, and sometimes you
can’t. They say an Injin never forgits a kindness, and I s’pose they
don’t, fur if you’re kind to one of ’em he’ll hunt you for a week, and
never give up till he gets a lock of your ha’r to remember you by. The
only trouble is that when he takes the lock he’s mighty sartin to take
all thar is on your head.”
“Then I suppose, Uncle Ruff, that the fellow I started off on a walk
won’t be likely to forget me very soon?”
“Not much; and while you’re ’bout it, you might jist as well hold him
in remembrance. You see, Little Rifle,” continued Old Ruff, resuming
his supper, “I never b’l’eve in murder--not at all; but when you’ve
got your gun p’inted at a red-skin, and don’t feel like pulling the
trigger, it’s a good idee to shet your eyes, hold your gun steady, and
sneeze. When a man has his finger on the trigger, and onexpectedly
sneezes, the gun is purty sartin to go off. I found that out when I
was a little younker, and had a bow and arrer sighted at my dear old
grandmother, wondering how near I could come to the end of her nose
without hitting it, and not intendin’ to shoot at all. The old lady
jist then had her snuffbox out, and I s’pose some of it got into my
norsetrils; fur I fetched a sneeze that like to have blowed my nose
off, and when I got over the a’rthquake that had shook me to pieces, I
see’d my grandmother picking up the only three teeth that she had left,
from the floor. Afore I could ax her pardon, the old man come in. I
remember he had been digging in the garden, and carried a spade in his
hand. Wal,” added the old joker, with a sigh, “I won’t describe the
incidents that follered; suffice it to say that I warn’t able to set
down for two weeks, and I don’t s’pose I’ll forgit that little episode
as long as I live.”
“Perhaps if I live all my life in these woods,” said Little Rifle, in a
voice of unconscious sadness, “I may come to look upon life as you do;
but I can not do so just yet.”
“You ain’t going to live here all your life,” said the hunter, with
such abruptness that the lad looked up inquiringly into his face, as if
he failed to get the full import of his words. “You’re getting to be
quite a likely-sized youngster, and it’s time that you see’d something
more of the world than you can see in these parts, though a chap can
see a powerful sight when he looks toward the mountains. I’m going on
East arter the summer is over, and I’ll take you with me. You’ll see
sights then that I reckon will make you open your eyes.”
“There is one sight which I often wonder whether I shall ever be given
to look upon.”
“What’s that?”
“My parents--my brothers and sisters--if I have any, and something
seems to tell me that I have. I tell you, Uncle Ruff, that strange
dreams often come to me, not by night only, but by daytime. Sometimes
when I am gliding over the stream in my canoe, or following the
windings of the river, I forget your caution about keeping my wits
about me, and I fall to thinking of the past, and of the future. I have
done it of late very frequently, and a feeling comes over me that I can
hardly describe. It has settled down into the belief that something
strange is going to happen--something which is to change the whole
course of my life, and make me really another person.”
“What is it going to be?” asked the old hunter, looking at the lad,
with a scared look, as if he dreaded to reply.
“I have no more idea of its nature than have you, but I know it’s
coming, for all that. And then too,” he added, with more animation, “by
my trying so much to think of the past. I have succeeded at last.”
“What!” exclaimed the astonished hunter, moving away from the table,
“what can you call to mind?”
“I remember when you found me. I was lying asleep upon some furs in
an Indian lodge, when I opened my eyes, and saw a man dressed in a
hunter’s dress, leaning over me. I remember that I was so frightened
that I cried, and you took me up in your arms to quiet me, and you
carried me away with you.”
“That’s it exactly,” replied the hunter; “and the qu’arest thing about
that business was that when I come to that lodge, standing by itself,
there wasn’t a red-skin to be seen anywhar near. I walked in, picked
you up, and walked away ag’in, and never cotched so much as a glimpse
of a copper-skin. I went back arter a month or so to see if I could
l’arn any thing, and found the lodge burned to the ground.”
“How far was that from here?”
“Hundreds of miles up along the Saskatchewan, on the trapping-grounds
of the Hudson Bay Company. You see arter I got hold of you, I took such
a fancy to you that I was afeard some of the red-skins would make a
hunt fur you, so I emigrated, and come down into Oregon. Arter I got
here, I felt troubled thinking maybe your parents or friends might be
up in them parts. So I left you with some friends at Fort Abercrombie,
and went up there to find out.”
“And learned nothing?”
“Nothing at all; I spent a month in trampin’ over the grounds. You know
that part of the country isn’t very thick with white folks, and such
as they be are hunters or trappers. I went to the forts, and every
place, where I could find any of ’em, but never a word did I l’arn.
When I fotched you away, I see’d that little rifle of yours hung up
over your head, and knowin’ as it was meant for you, I fotched that
too. I expected to l’arn something from that, ’cause you know thar ar’
two letters carved onto the stock--the letters ‘_H. R._’, and I s’posed
by that means I’d git some track of the owner--but it wa’n’t any use,
and I give it up at last. But what I want to ask my pet, is whether you
can’t call up any thing _afore_ I come into the Injin lodge and took
you away?”
“You know how hard I’ve tried, and once or twice, it seems to me that I
have succeeded. It is a dim picture of riding over a deep broad river,
with a good many people in the boat, and it seems to me that some of
them were of my own color, and I think, though you know that it is all
guesswork, that my father and mother were among them; but the picture
is so dim and faint that when I try to fix it in my mind it slips away
again, and all is dark.”
“Can’t you think of any thing else?--somethin’ different from that?”
asked old Robsart, with the most intense interest.
“Nothing beyond that; all is blank. Of course, I remember the several
times that you left me at the fort, and the kind men there, who taught
me how to read and a great many other things, but my memory is able to
do no more. Sometime it may succeed better.”
“Wal, I hope it will,” said Old Ruff, with a sigh; “it ’ud go hard with
me to part with you, and I’d only do it fur your own good; but these
woods ain’t the place to fetch up a younker like you. You’re smart
’nough, and handsome ’nough to desarve better things. Old Ruff has
got a little pile of money stored away in one of the banks down in
Fr’isco, and if your friends don’t turn up, afore the summer’s over,
we’ll see what that can do fur you, my little pet.”
“No matter what may happen in the future,” said Little Rifle, in an
affectionate tone, “no matter where the rest of my life may be cast, or
what good or evil fortune may befall me, I can never forget _you_, who
rescued me from the savages, and have always been more than a father to
me.”
“That’s all right,” said the old hunter, hastily, and speaking as if he
were swallowing something that kept rising in his throat, “that’s all
right, and don’t say nothin’ more about it.”
For a long time they conversed in this familiar manner, and then Little
Rifle, as was always his practice, when with the hunter, kissed him
affectionately, bade him good-night, and withdrew to his own apartment,
which, it will be remembered, was at the other end of the lodge or
cabin, where he was never disturbed or molested, during his sleeping
hours.
Old Robsart sat on the outside of his humble cabin for fully two hours
more, wrapped in deep thought.
“Qua’r,” he muttered, after awhile, “but when I was huntin’ to-day, the
same feelin’ come over me. I know I’m going to lose Little Rifle, in
some way or other. It’ll go hard with me--but I hope it will be for the
best.”
And with this conclusion, he rose to his feet, passed into the cabin
and retired to slumber.