The black chasm which separated us from the trail of the wild hunter was
not as formidable a barrier as the unfathomable abyss which separates
the reader from what he thinks he would have done had he been in my
place, and what really would have been his plan of action.
There were a lot of burning questions which I had privately made up in
my mind to propound to the Wild Hunter, or the even wilder medicine
bear, upon the occasion of our next meeting. But when the lad was
standing before me, with bended bow and flashing eyes, the burning
importance of those questions did not appeal to me as forcibly as did
the urgent necessity of sheltering my body behind the friendly stone. To
be truthful, it must be admitted that the proposed inquiries were, for
the time, entirely forgotten, and I even breathed a sigh of relief when
the boy suddenly clambered up the face of the cliff, turned, gave us a
fierce look of defiance, made some quick energetic gestures with his
hand and disappeared.
He scaled that precipitous rock with the rapidity and self-confidence of
a gray squirrel running up the trunk of a hickory tree, squirrel-like,
taking advantage of every crack, cranny and projection that could be
grasped by fingers or moccasin-covered toes.
Not until the Indian had disappeared down a dry coulee did I venture
from the shelter of the protecting rock, or realize that my carefully
planned interview must be indefinitely postponed.
With his arms folded across his chest, his blond hair sweeping his
shoulders, his blue eyes fixed upon a rocky rib of the mountain behind
which the boy had disappeared, Big Pete still stood like a statue. But
gradually the statuesque pose resolved itself into a more commonplace
posture, and the muscles of the face relaxed until the familiar twinkle
hovered around the corners of his eyes. "What did he say when he made
those motions, Pete?"
"Waugh! he said he was not afraid of any whitefaced coyote like us." And
bringing forth his pipe, Pete filled it from the beaded tobacco pouch
which hung on his breast, and by means of a horn of punk, a flint and
steel, he soon had the pipe aglow and was puffing away as calmly as if
nothing unusual had occurred. Presently he exclaimed, "Gol durn his
daguerrotype, what good did it do him to throw that sheep down the
gulch? Reckon Le-loo and me could find a better grave for mutton chops
than that canyon bottom. The mountains didn't need the sheep an' we did.
But, I reckon it was his own sheep you killed, 'cause it had a porcupine
collar same pattern as the trimmings of his shirt."
Turning his great blue eyes full upon me, he suddenly shot this inquiry,
"Be he bar, ecutock or werwolf?"
"He is the finest adjusted, easiest running, most exquisitely balanced,
highest geared bit of human machinery I ever saw," I answered
enthusiastically.
"Wall, maybe ye are right, Le-loo, an' maybe ye hain't; which is
catamount to saying, maybe it is a man and maybe it tain't."
"Steady, Pete, old fellow, let us go slow; now tell me at what you're
driving?" I pleaded.
"It looks to me this hea'-a-way," he explained. "I've seed his trail
onct or twice, an' I've seed him onct, but I never yet seed his trail
and the Wild Hunter's trail at the same time and place. 'Pears to me
that a man who, when it's convenient, kin make a wolf of hisself, might
likewise make a boy of hisself whenever he felt that way. Never heared
tell on enny real laid who cud climb like a squtton and shoot a bow
better nor a Robin Hood or Injun, and that's howsomever!"
"Well, it does look 'howsomever,' and no mistake," I admitted, "and what
makes it worse, our dinner is at the bottom of this infernal gulch.
Come, let us be moving; the breeze from the snowfields chills me. Let us
hit his trail now while it is fresh."
This was a simple proposition to make, but a difficult one to carry into
execution; for to all appearances that trail began upon the other side
of the chasm, and there was no bridge in sight by which we could cross.
Big Pete carefully put a cork-stopper in his pipe, extinguishing the
fire without wasting the unconsumed contents; he then carefully put his
briarwood away and began to uncoil a lariat from around his middle. As
he loosened the braided rawhide from his waist his gaze was roaming over
the opposite rocks. Presently he fixed his attention upon a pinnacle
which reared its cube-like form above the top of the opposite side of
the chasm; the latter was of itself much higher than the brink upon
which we stood. Swinging the loop around his head he sent it whistling
across the chasm, where it settled and encircled the projecting stone,
the honda striking the face of the cliff with a sullen thud. The rope
tightened, but when we both threw our weight on our end of the lariat to
try it, the cube-like pinnacle moved on its base.
"I oughter knowed better than to try to lasso a piece of slide rock,"
said Pete in disgusted tones, as he cast the end of the braided rawhide
loose and watched it for a moment dangling down the opposite side of the
canyon.
"Now, Le-loo, we must get over this hole or lose the best lariat in the
Rocky Mountains. We kin look for that boy's trail on this side, for even
if he be an Ecutock, I'll bet my crooker bone 'gainst a lock of his hair
that he can't jump th' hole, an' I'll wager my left ear that he's got a
trail an' a bridge somewhar--'nless he turns bird and flops over things
like this," he added, with a troubled look.
"Pete," said I, "never mind the bird business. I'll admit that there is
a lot of explanation due us before we can rightly judge on the events of
the past few weeks; still I think it may all be explained in a rational
manner; but what if it cannot? We have but one trip to make through this
world, and the more we see the more we will know at the end of the
journey. I am as curious as a prong-horned antelope when there is a
mystery, so put your nose to the ground, my good friend, and find the
spot where this Mr. Werwolf, witch, or bear flies the canyon, and maybe,
like the husband of 'The Witch of Fife,' we may find the 'black crook
shell,' and with its aid fly out of this 'lum."
"I believe your judication is sound, Le-loo; stay where you be an' if he
hain't a witch I'll bet my front tooth agin the string of his moccasin
that I'll find the bridge, and I'll swear by my grandmother's hind leg
that that little imp will pay for our sheep yit."
As Pete finished these remarks there was a sudden and astonishing change
in his appearance. His head fell forward, his shoulders drooped, his
back bowed and his knee bent. It was no longer the upright statuesque
Pete the Mountaineer, but Peter the Trailer, all of whose faculties were
concentrated upon the ground. With a swinging gait the human bloodhound
traveled swiftly and silently along the edge of the crevasse, noting
every bunch of moss, fragment of stone, drift of snow or bit of moist
earth, reading the shorthand notes of Nature with facility which far
excelled the ability of my own stenographer to read her own notes when
the latter are a few hours old. But a short time had elapsed before I
heard a shout, and, hurrying to the place where my big friend was
seated, I inquired, "Any luck?"
"Tha's as you may call it. Here is wha' tha' boy jumped," he replied,
pointing to some marks on the stone which were imperceptible to me, "an'
tha's wha' he landed," he continued, pointing to a slight ledge upon the
face of the opposite cliff at least twenty feet distant. "He's a jumper,
an' no mistake--guess I might as well have my front tooth pulled, fur
I've lost my bet," soliloquized the trailer, as he sat on the edge of
the cliff, with his legs hanging over the frightful chasm.
The ledge indicated by Big Pete as the landing place of the phenomenal
jumper might possibly have offered a foothold for a bighorn or goat, but
I could not believe that any human being could jump twenty feet to a
crumbling trifle of a ledge on the face of a precipice, and not only
retain a foothold there, but run up the face of the rock like a fly on a
window-pane. Yet I could see that something had worn the ledge at the
point indicated and when I stood a little distance away from the trail I
could plainly note a difference in color marking the course of the trail
where it led over the flinty rocks to the jumping place.
"Wull, Le-loo! What's your opinion of the Ecutock now? Do he use wings
or ride a barleycorn broom?" asked Pete, with a triumphant smile.