THE BIVOUAC IN CROOKED CANON.
"Nary time, old man. There ain't a cussed bit o' danger here--no, not
nary a half a primin'. Camp right down an' bunk in peace and quietness.
My narves is steady, an' thar ain't no eitchin' in the forefinger o' my
right hand. A man in skirty-coats would be safe here, ef he'd nothin'
better than a double-barreled shot-gun with no hind-sights."
It was after dark, in a wild and gloomy spot, all shaded and strewn
with trees and rocks, and the three men with their three horses were
almost breathless from a difficult ascent which they had just made.
The three men were Bill Blaze, who was speaking, Harry Winkle, who had
spoken, and Pompey, who, the picture of contentment and fidelity, kept
his place a little in the background.
"You are sure that we can do nothing more at present, and that we are
in no danger of attack, ourselves? We might have been seen by some
look-out or scout. I'm always on the side of prudent carefulness."
"Nary bit, I tell yer! Didn't I, Bill Blaze, put yer through? We didn't
make no more show than a bob-tail rat. Ef thar war any extra dodge I
didn't put on, jist tell me on it, an' I knock under. It warn't no
use bein' so dog-goned careful, but havin' bin lit on in one camp,
an' sarcumvented a leetle later, makes a feller draw his bead mighty
fine. You've hed a lesson from Bill Blaze when that chap war doin' his
purtiest, an' ef you hain't l'arned any thing you'd better sell yer
claim an' go East; yer ain't wanted har."
"I suppose it's all right then. We can give our horses a chance to rest
and graze; then a little food and sleep for ourselves; then to work.
Pity that we must eat and sleep whether we will or no. What valuable
time we have lost in procuring a chance to do the two."
"I ain't so much on the sleep; it's kinder nateral now to do without
it; but, I never could see thet it was losin' time to take a good
squar' meal o' buffler. I've seen the time, too, when I didn't think it
war losin' time to gruge clean through a hind-quarter of a black-tailed
buck. If ye'd gone across the Cimmerin river, an' got lost on the
Ratone Mountings, ye mout hev thought yer war puttin' in the time
purty well, guzzlin' down froze hackberries. As for roast coyote, that
war a delicacy o' the season to smack yer lips over. Four pound er so
wouldn't a-took yer appetite down to regulation pitch. Waugh!"
"Hackberries and prairie-wolf--rather a miserable diet, I should say.
Have you tried it?"
"Hev I tried it? Yer right, I hev. That is, the hackberry part. Ther'
war only one wolf to about seventy ov us, an' by the time I got my
knife out it war all gone, so I stayed my innards a while smellin' on
his bones. I found the derned cusses hed forgot to open his skull--an'
them brains! Imagine it yerself; I never kin do 'em justice. Ef I could
find a squaw as could dress up vittles to taste like 'em did, consarn
my high-heeled top-knot, ef I wouldn't hook on! 'Pears to me I'd be
almost willin' to go back to the settlements."
Blaze's enthusiasm, over that remembered meal of brains, amused Winkle
vastly. It was not the words, but the manner of the man, that made him
at times forget his anxiety, bringing to the surface feelings that
had long been buried. There was over all the mixed quaintness and
bluffness, moderation and braggadocio of the hunter, an irresistible
appearance of honesty and trustworthiness that had won upon him in the
moments following immediately their first meeting. As the man seemed to
have but little to say of others, and all that he had said of himself
might well be uttered by one who, swinging loose, years ago, from the
restraints of civilization, had ever since, through hardships and
dangers, through thick and thin, fire and water, relied for the most
part upon himself--at the worst, we do not doubt without some cause, or
shadow of cause. As Winkle had none, he felt inclined to trust. After a
time arose a desire to confide.
The three men had been in camp for some time. They had talked some
little, using, as in a country shadowed by danger becomes almost
habitual, a guarded tone. There had been intervals of silence, too,
when Winkle's mind thronged with exciting and troublous thoughts. These
thoughts, rushing along tumultuously, and in an orderless throng,
became too oppressive. They drove away sleep, banished hunger, brought
weariness to rest, and made inaction work.
What all that foreboded he knew by experience. He was willing to brood,
yet there was a limit he neither cared or dared to pass. Over and
beyond the old troubles, which had well-nigh crazed his brain, he had
found that at Back Load Trace, which had been startling at first, in
fact appalling. When he first caught sight of the face of Edith Van
Payne he was bewildered. Then he fancied that his mind had given way,
or that he had seen a visitor from the other world. So fully convinced
was he of this, that, when he had found Blaze in his camp he had been
afraid or ashamed to question him as to his knowledge concerning the
pale-faced girl who had flashed by him in the moonlight, or of her
shadowy pursuer. It was only after he had heard a scream, seen her
borne off, and had the aid of the evidence of Blaze's senses, that he
came to admit that he was dealing with the stern natural instead of
the appalling supernatural. During the hours of pursuit there had been
but little time to ask questions, and indeed his mind, agitated by
surrounding circumstances, suggested but few. Now, in the moments of
inaction, scores arose.
How it came that he thus found Edith, and amidst such strange
surroundings, gave him cause for much troubled thought. How came she at
Back Load Trace, apparently protected by Martin and his Free Trappers?
And what chance, or was it chance, that had brought Endicott and her
together? Perhaps Blaze could answer some of these questions, and so,
having, as we before stated, during their brief acquaintance acquired a
large stock of confidence in him, to Blaze he applied.
"I ain't much acquainted with Dick Martin, an' I don't know more ner
the law allows concernin' his private affairs. He come in here several
years ago with a couple of men, an' put up a ranche. He war slightly
green on the perairie, but hed the balance o' his teeth cut some year
afore, an' he l'arned fast. Who he is, er what he is, I can't fur
sartin say; but, he's at the head of as lively a gang of hunters an'
Free Trappers as I want to meet. They make a purty wide range when the
season's opened an' pelts is prime. The rest o' the time thar's allers
more or less on 'em loafin' around Back Load Trace. Mebbe they're
squar' an' mebbe they ain't. They never troubled me, but there's men
in the gang that's not the kind to stick at trifles. I never heerd o'
Martin himself doin' any partikiler deviltry; but, somehow, the place
hain't the sweetest o' names. An honest trapper don't ginerally camp
long about thar, an' when he meets any o' the men trappin' on the same
stream he ain't anxious to stay."
"And the woman we saw and to save whom we started upon this trip? Who
is she, where did she come from? What is her connection with this
Martin?"
"Now yer askin' questions ag'in that I ain't up to the handle on. Ef
ye'd talk about trace-chains an' beaver-bait you'd find me _thar_. I've
tramped over hundreds o' miles an' never see'd a red deer or a white
squaw; but the next time I went over the ground thar war plenty o'
both. The tramp o' civalization allers brings both along in the same
trapsack. Allers a-murderin' an' a-murderin' the deer as it brings 'em.
Mebbe it ain't so all over the country; but I often wondered whether
they'd all go under when thar weren't no more outskirts fur 'em to live
on."
A shade of vexation passed over Winkle's face as he answered somewhat
hotly: "As I'm not deer-hunting, I care little to speculate on their
future destiny. My questions had reference to something entirely
different."
"Yes," said Blaze, reflectively. "So I'll allow. Mebbe it all amounts
to the same--mebbe it don't. I've seen deer-hunts that bagged no game,
an' I've seen them which did. As fur the gal, I've hear'n of her
oft'ner than I've seen her. She turned up one mornin' at Back Load
Trace as though she war shook outen a bag. A kinder adopted darter o'
Martin's; some one said onc't she war his niece."
"But what is she doing in such a place?"
"What does gals ginerally do? Rides in the country, shoots a good
string they say, an' raises the devil now an' then. Bin the makin'
on her too. So thin she couldn't git on more ner one side of a hoss,
an' so weak she couldn't throw a shadder when she first arove. Bin
a-pickin' up sence then."
"And the man I saw riding just behind her--what does he do here? Is he
connected with Martin's establishment?"
"Which man was those? Describe the crittur."
To the best of his ability Winkle drew a word-picture of Endicott.
Blaze listened with interest, his face showing that he recognized the
portrait.
"Now yer comin' to su'thin' I can talk on. No, he ain't none o'
Martin's men, an' don't b'long in these regions. He war jist passin'
through, in company with three or four more, an' see'd Martin's niece.
Knowed her of old, he did. He's a dead idol, he ses, which I suppose
are about same's a dead beat, an' from the looks o' the man, I should
specify war a very true hit. Killed the gal onc't afore, but she's come
to life ag'in, an', as the other chap ses, ain't likely to forgit it.
Ef--"
"Man, man!" exclaimed Winkle, excitedly. "How came you to know this?
The same story, the same story! To travel fifteen hundred miles, and
the first man I pick up can tell me the same story! I tell you,"
continued he, fiercely, leaping up and shaking his clenched fist in the
direction of Back Load Trace, "I tell you he's _my_ man!"
"Ef you'd go a leetle slower it mout facillate peddlin' operations. Sit
down yere like a reasonable white man that ain't anxious to hev his
h'ar cut fur nothin', an' I'll tell yer, nigh as I kin, the facts in
the case."
This common-sense address recalled Winkle to himself, and he resumed
his sitting position, but his eye still blazed and his frame shook with
suppressed emotion.
"Tell me where you heard this then, or how you came to know so much of
a story I certainly should not have expected to hear in this region."
"Simple as coon-trappin'. When I fust struck yer camp I'll honest allow
I mout hev been indooced to hev run off yer hoss-flesh."
After this rather queer exordium Blaze paused as if expecting an
outburst; but Winkle was beginning to understand his man and remained
silent.
"Yas, that's an onmitigated fact. Soon es I slung inter the rights o'
things I felt a speshal call to see they warn't run off. So, while you
an' the dark war snoozin' I hed one eye open. I felt somethin' war
abroad, an' went out a-scoutin'. Nigh whar you come so nigh puttin' my
light out, under the shadder o' the trees, in fact whar you found me,
I heerd two men a-talkin'; one on em was 'your man'; t'other a gospil
chap, that talked es though he'd bucked cl'ar frum under the Big Book
an' tuk to travelin' on his shape."
"What were they talking of, and how came they to speak of that which
you have just mentioned?"
Thus questioned, Blaze gave a synopsis of their conversation as
understood by him, winding up with:
"And now, s'posin' you give us an idea of what yer man has really bin
a-doin'."