THE CAVE OF THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST--MARCH AND MARY HOLD PLEASANT
INTERCOURSE--DICK'S GOOD QUALITIES ENLARGED ON--THE WILD MAN GIVES A
REDSKIN A STRANGE LESSON--A STARTLING INTERRUPTION TO PLEASANT CONVERSE.
When March Marston awoke the following morning, and found himself lying
on a low couch in the mysterious cavern of the Wild Man of the West, he
experienced the curious sensation, with which every one is more or less
familiar, of not knowing where he was.
The vision in leather, which had worried him to such an extent during
the night, had left him in peace--as most visions usually do--an hour or
so before daybreak, and as the real vision had not yet issued from the
inner chamber of the cave, there was nothing familiar near him when he
awoke to recall his scattered senses. His first effort to rise,
however, quickened his memory amazingly. Pains shot through all his
limbs: the chase, the fall, Dick, the cavern, recurred to him; and
last--but not least, for it obliterated and swallowed up all the rest--
the vision broke upon his beclouded brain and cleared his faculties.
Looking curiously round the cavern, he observed for the first time--what
he might have observed the night before had he not been preoccupied with
sudden, numerous, and powerful surprises--that the walls were hung with
arms and trophies of the chase. Just opposite to him hung the skin of
an enormous grisly bear, with the head and skull entire, and the mouth
and teeth grinning at him in an awful manner. Near to this were the
skin and horns of several buffaloes. In other places there were more
horns, and heads, and hides of bears of various kinds, as well as of
deer, and, conspicuous above the entrance, hung the ungainly skull and
ponderous horns of an elk.
Mingled with these, and arranged in such a manner as to prove that Dick,
or the vision--one or other, or both--were by no means destitute of
taste, hung various spears, and bows, and quivers, and shields of Indian
manufacture, with spears and bows whose form seemed to indicate that
Dick himself was their fabricator. There was much of tasteful ornament
on the sheaths and handles of many of these weapons.
The floor of the apartment in which he lay was of solid rock, cleanly
washed and swept, but there was no furniture of any kind--only a pile of
fresh-cut pine-branches, with which the place was perfumed, and two or
three rough logs which had been used as seats the night before by the
host and hostess of this--to March--enchanted castle.
March was staring earnestly at one of these logs which lay close to the
ashes of the fire, trying to recall the form that had last occupied it,
when a rustle at the inner passage attracted his attention, and next
moment the vision again stood before him. It was, if possible, more
innocent and young and sweet than on the previous night.
"Good mornin'. You very good sleep, me hope?"
"Ay, that had I, a capital sleep," cried March heartily, holding out his
hand, which the vision grasped unhesitatingly, and shook with manly
vigour.
"Bees you hongray?"
"No, not a bit," said March.
The girl looked sad at this. "You muss heat," she said quickly, at the
same time raking together the embers of the fire, and blowing them up
into a flame, over which she placed a large iron pot. "Dick hims always
heat well an' keep well. Once me was be sick. Dick him say to me,
`Heat.' Me say, `No want heat.' Hims say, `You _muss_ heat.' So me
try; an' sure 'nuff, get well to-morrow."
March laughed at this prompt and effectual remedy for disease, and said,
"Well, I'll try. Perhaps it will cure me, especially if you feed me."
Poor March saw, by the simplicity of his companion's looks, that
gallantry and compliments were alike thrown away on her; so he resolved
to try them no more. Having come to this conclusion, he said--
"I say, Mary, come and sit by me while I talk with you. I want to know
how you came to be in this wild, out-o'-the-way place, and who Dick is,
and what brought him here, an' in short, all about it."
The girl drew her log near as he desired, but said, "What Dick no tell,
me no tell."
"But, surely," urged March in a somewhat testy tone, "you may tell me
_something_ about ye."
Mary shook her head.
"Why not?"
"Dick say, `No tell.'"
"Oh! Dick's an ass!"
Had Mary known the meaning of her companion's rude speech, she might
possibly have surprised him with a decided opinion in regard to himself.
But, never having heard of nor seen such a creature in all her life,
she only looked up with a quiet expression of curiosity, and said--
"What bees an ass?"
"Ha! ha!--ho! he! a--" roared our hero, with a mingled feeling of
exasperation and savage glee--"an ass? Why, it's a lovely slender
creature, with short pretty ears and taper limbs, and a sleek, glossy
coat, like--like _me_, Mary, dear; why, I'm an ass myself. Pray, do get
me somethin' to eat. I really believe my appetite's comin' back agin."
Mary looked at March in much concern. She had once nursed the Wild Man
through a severe illness, and knew what delirium was, and she began to
suspect that her guest was beginning to give way.
"Now, lie down," she said with an air of decision that was almost
ludicrous in one so youthful. Yet March felt that he must obey. "Me
will git meat ready. You sleep littil bit."
March shut his eyes at once; but, the instant that Mary turned to attend
to the iron kettle, he opened them, and continued to gaze at the busy
little housewife, until she chanced to look in his direction, when he
shut them again quickly, and very tight. This was done twice; but the
third time Mary caught him in the act, and broke into a merry laugh. It
was the first time she had laughed aloud since March met her; so he
laughed too, out of sheer delight and sympathy.
When March had finished breakfast, he tried to get up, and found, to his
great relief and satisfaction, that no bones were broken--a fact of
which he had stood in considerable doubt--and that his muscles were less
acutely pained than they had been. Still, he was very stiff, and quite
unable, with any degree of comfort, to walk across the cave; so he made
up his mind to lie there till he got well--a resolution which, in the
pride of his heart, he deemed exceedingly virtuous and praiseworthy,
forgetting, either deliberately or stupidly, that the presence of Mary
rendered that otherwise dull cavern the most delightful of sick
chambers, and that her attendance was ample compensation and reward for
any amount of pain or self-denial.
"Mary," he said, when she had cleared away the debris of the morning
meal, "sit down here, and tell me a few things. You're so terribly
close that one doesn't know what he may ask an' what he mayn't. But if
you don't like to speak, you can hold your tongue, you know. Now, tell
me, how old are you?"
"Fifteen," replied Mary.
"Ay! I thought ye'd been older. How long have ye bin with Dick?"
"In cave here--ten year. Before that, me live in my father's wigwam."
"Was yer father a trapper?" inquired March tenderly.
Mary's face at once assumed an expression of earnest gravity, and she
answered, "Yes," in a low, sad tone.
March was going to have inquired further on this point, but fear lest he
should hurt the feelings of the poor child induced him to change the
subject.
"And how came ye," said he, "first to meet with Dick?"
Mary pressed her lips.
"Oh! very well; don't tell if it ain't right, by no manner o' means. Do
ye think that Dick intends to keep ye here always?"
"Me not know."
"Humph! An' you say he's good to ye?"
"Oh yes," cried Mary with a sudden blaze of animation on her usually
placid countenance, "him's good, very good--gooder to me than nobody
else."
"Well, I could have guessed that, seein' that nobody else has had
anything to do with ye but him for ten years past."
"But him's not only good to me--good to everybody," continued the girl
with increasing animation. "You not know _how_ good--can't know."
"Certainly not," assented March; "it ain't possible to know, not havin'
bin told; but if you'll tell me I'll listen."
March Marston had at last struck a chord that vibrated intensely in the
bosom of the warm-hearted child. She drew her log closer to him in her
eagerness to dilate on the goodness of her adopted father, and began to
pour into his willing ears such revelations of the kind and noble deeds
that he had done, that March was fired with enthusiasm, and began to
regard his friend Dick in the light of a demigod. Greatheart, in the
"Pilgrim's Progress," seemed most like to him, he thought, only Dick
seemed grander, which was a natural feeling; for Bunyan drew his
Greatheart true to nature, while Mary and March had invested Dick with a
robe of romance, which glittered so much that he looked preternaturally
huge.
March listened with rapt attention; but as the reader is not March, we
will not give the narrative in Mary's bad English. Suffice it to say,
that she told how, on one occasion, Dick happened to be out hunting near
to a river, into which he saw a little Indian child fall. It was
carried swiftly by the current to a cataract fifty feet high, and in a
few minutes would have been over and dashed to pieces, when Dick happily
saw it, and plunging in brought it safe to shore, yet with such
difficulty that he barely gained the bank, and grasped the branch of an
overhanging willow, when his legs were drawn over the edge of the fall.
He had to hold on for ten minutes, till men came from the other side of
the stream to his assistance.
Mary also told him (and it was evening ere she finished all she had to
tell him) how that, on another occasion, Dick was out after grislies
with a hunter, who had somehow allowed himself to be caught by a bear,
and would have been torn in pieces had not Dick come up with his great
two-edged sword--having fired off his rifle without effect--and, with
one mighty sweep at the monster's neck, cut right through its jugular
vein, and all its other veins, down to the very marrow of its backbone;
in fact, killed it at one blow--a feat which no one had ever done, or
had ever heard of as being done, from the days of the first Indian to
that hour.
Many such stories did Mary relate to the poor invalid, who bore his
sufferings with exemplary patience and fortitude, and listened with
unflagging interest; but of all the stories she told, none seemed to
afford her so much pleasure in the telling as the following:--
One day Dick went out to hunt buffaloes, on his big horse, for he had
several steeds, one or other of which he rode according to fancy; but he
always mounted the big black one when he went after the buffalo or to
war. Mary here explained, very carefully, that Dick never went to war
on his own account--that he was really a man of peace, but that, when he
saw oppression and cruelty, his blood boiled within him at such a rate
that he almost went mad, and often, under the excitement of hot
indignation, would he dash into the midst of a band of savages and
scatter them right and left like autumn leaves.
Well, as he was riding along among the mountains, near the banks of a
broad stream, and not far from the edge of the great prairie, he came
suddenly on an object that caused his eyes to glare and his teeth to
grind; for there, under the shade of a few branches, with a pot of water
by her side, sat an old Indian woman. Dick did not need to ask what she
was doing there. He knew the ways of the redskins too well to remain a
moment in doubt. She had grown so old and feeble that her relations had
found her burdensome; so, according to custom, they left her there to
die. The poor old creature knew that she was a burden to them. She
knew also the customs of her tribe--it was at her own request she had
been left there, a willing victim to an inevitable fate, because she
felt that her beloved children would get on better without her. They
made no objection. Food, to last for a few days, was put within reach
of her trembling hand; a fire was kindled, and a little pile of wood
placed beside it, also within reach. Then they left her. They knew
that when that food was consumed, and the last stick placed upon the
fire, the shrunken limbs would stand in no need of warmth--the old heart
would be still. Yet that heart had once beat joyfully at the sound of
those pattering feet that now retired with heavy ruthless tread for
ever. What a commentary on savage life! What a contrast between the
promptings of the unregenerate heart of man and the precepts of that
blessed--thrice blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ, where love, unalterable,
inextinguishable, glows in every lesson and sweetens every command.
When Dick came upon her suddenly, as we have said, he was not ten paces
distant from the spot where she sat; but she was apparently deaf and
blind, for she evinced no knowledge of his presence. She was reaching
out her skinny arm to place another stick upon the sinking fire at the
time, for it was a sharp and cold, though a bright and sunny autumn day.
Dick stopped his horse, crushed his teeth together, and sat for a few
moments regarding her intently.
Either the firewood had originally been placed too far away from the old
woman's hand, or she had shifted her position, for she could not reach
it. Once and again she made the effort--she stretched out her withered
arm and succeeded in just touching the end of one of the pieces of wood,
but could not grasp it. She pawed it once or twice, and then gave up
the attempt with a little sigh. Drawing herself slowly together, she
gathered up the rabbit-skin blanket which rested on her shoulders and
attempted feebly to fold it across her chest. Then she slowly drooped
her white head, with an expression of calm resignation on her old
wrinkled visage.
Dick's great heart almost burst with conflicting emotions. The wrath
that welled up as he thought of the deserters was met by a gush of
tender pity as he gazed through blinding tears on the deserted. With a
fling that caused his stout warhorse to stagger, he leaped to the
ground, tore open the breast of his hunting-shirt, and, sitting down
beside the old woman, placed her cold hand in his bosom.
She uttered a feeble cry and made a slight momentary effort to resist;
but Dick's act, though promptly, was, nevertheless, tenderly done, and
the big hand that stroked her white head was so evidently that of a
friend, that the poor creature resigned herself to the enjoyment of that
warmth of which she stood so much in need. Meanwhile Dick, without
shifting his position, stretched forth his long arm, collected all the
wood within reach, and placed it on the fire.
After a few minutes the old woman raised her head, and looking earnestly
in Dick's face with her bleared and almost sightless eyes, said in the
Indian language, with which her companion was well acquainted--
"My son, have you come back to me?"
A gush of indignant feeling had again to be violently stifled ere Dick
could answer in moderate tones--
"No, mother, he's _not_ come back; but I'll be a son to ye. See, sit up
an' warm yerself at the blaze. I'll get ye some meat and sticks."
In hot haste, and with desperate activity, for he had no other way of
relieving his feelings, Dick cut down a quantity of firewood and placed
it close to the hand of the old woman. Then he untied the tin kettle
which he always carried at his saddle-bow, and, with a piece of dried
venison, concocted a quantity of hot soup in a marvellously short space
of time. This done, he sat down beside the old woman and made her
partake of it.
"Is it long since they left ye, mother?" he said, after she had
swallowed a little.
The old woman pondered for a few seconds. "No," she said, "not long.
Only one sun has gone down since my son left me." Then she added in a
sad tone, "I loved him. He is a great warrior--a brave chief--and he
loved me, too. But he had to leave me; I am old and useless. It is my
fate."
"Describe your son to me," said Dick abruptly. "He is tall and straight
as the poplar," began the old creature, while a look of pride played for
a moment on her withered countenance. "His shoulders are broad and his
limbs are supple. He can run and leap like the deer, but not so well as
he once could. Grey hairs are now mingling with the black--"
"Has he any mark by which I could find him out?" interrupted Dick
impatiently.
"He has a deep cut over the right eye," returned the woman; "but stay,"
she added in some alarm, "you would not harm my son; you are not an
enemy?"
"No, I would not; I would do him good. Which way did they go?"
"To the prairie--to the rising sun."
Dick at once arose, placed the kettle of soup close to the old woman's
side, and unbuckling his saddle-girth, removed the blanket that covered
his saddle, and transferred it to her shoulders.
This done, without uttering another word, he vaulted into his saddle,
and dashed away as if he were flying for his life. The old woman
listened until the clatter of his horse's hoofs ceased to beat upon her
deadened ear, and then bent her head, as at the first, in calm
resignation. Doubtless she fancied that another fellow-creature had
forsaken her, and that the end would soon come.
But Dick had not forsaken her. He bounded along over the rugged ground
on the mettlesome steed, striking fire from the flinty rocks, leaping
creeks and rivulets, bursting through bush and brake, mile after mile,
until he gained the open prairie, while the black coat of his charger
was speckled with foam. Here he drew rein, and trotted hither and
thither in search of the tracks of the Indians. He found them at last,
and dismounted to examine them, for, save to the eye of a trapper or a
redman, there were no visible tracks on that hard turf.
Remounting, he resumed his headlong course--sweeping over the springy
turf of the plains as if his horse were a winged Pegasus, whose energies
could not know exhaustion. All day he rode, and as evening drew on he
came in sight of the tribe of Indians.
They had encamped for the night, and were preparing their evening meal;
but when they saw the solitary horseman on the far-off horizon, the
braves and old men went to the verge of the camp to watch him. On he
came, bounding over the turf like the prong-horned antelope, turning
neither to the right hand nor to the left, but taking everything that
intercepted him in a flying leap, and bearing down on the camp as an
arrow flies from the bow.
Although a single horseman is not usually an object of terror to a band
of Indians, these braves soon began to evince by their looks that they
did not feel easy in regard to this one. As he drew near they
recognised him; for Dick had on a former occasion given this particular
tribe a taste of his prowess. Each man instantly rushed to his weapons
and horse; but the horses had been turned out to graze, and could not be
easily caught. Before they secured their weapons Dick was in the midst
of them. With an eagle glance he singled out the chief with the cut
over his right eye, and rode between him and his tent. The Indian,
seeing that he was cut off from his weapons, darted swiftly out upon the
plain, and made for a clump of stunted trees, hoping to find shelter
until his comrades could come to his rescue. But Dick was there before
him, and rode down upon him in such a way that he was compelled to take
to the open plain and run for his life.
His pursuer allowed him to run, keeping just close enough to him to
force him into the particular course he desired him to take. But the
savage proved, indeed, to be what his mother had styled him--a brave
chief. Apparently resolving rather to die than to be hunted thus like a
wolf, he halted suddenly, turned sharp round, and, crossing his arms on
his bare chest, looked Dick full in the face as he came up. Just as he
was within ten yards of him, the Indian drew his knife, and hurled it at
the breast of his enemy with such violence that it hissed in its passage
through the air. Dick received it on his shield, where it stood
quivering. Plucking it therefrom with a grim smile, he placed it in his
own girdle, and riding up to the Indian, sternly bade him mount in front
of him.
There was no refusing to obey that voice. The Indian cast one uneasy
glance towards his camp, which was now far away on the plain, but there
was no sign of any one coming to the rescue. His captor had got the
credit of being an evil spirit, and he felt that he was left to his
fate. A hasty repetition of the order compelled him to turn and seize
the mane of the horse. Dick held out his toe for him to step on; the
next moment he was seated in front of the pale-face, galloping towards
the mountains.
Whatever astonishment the Indian felt at this singular treatment, or
whatever his curiosity as to the result of it all, his countenance
expressed nothing but calm scorn and defiance. He was evidently working
himself into that state of mind which these redskin warriors endeavour
to assume when they are captured and taken to the stake and the torture,
there to prove their title to the name of brave by enduring the most
inconceivable agonies with stoical indifference, or there to bring
discredit on their tribe, infamy on their name, and joy to their
enemies, by breaking down under the infliction of tortures at the bare
mention of which humanity shudders.
For some time they maintained the same headlong speed. When, however,
all danger of pursuit was over, Dick drew rein, and proceeded more
leisurely, in order to relieve his now jaded steed. But that was a
steed of the true metal. It possessed that generous spirit which would
have induced it willingly to exert itself even to the death. Its owner
might have ridden it till it fell prostrate and dying on the plain, but
he could not have ridden it to the point of refusing to advance because
of exhaustion. He was merciful to it, and went slowly during the night;
but he did not come to a final halt until the rising sun found him close
to the camp of the dying woman.
The Indian now for the first time began partly to guess the object of
his having been brought there, and steeled his heart to bear whatever
might await him.
Dick dismounted, and grasping the Indian with a force that showed him
how helpless he would be in a personal struggle should he venture to
attempt it, led him forward, and placed him a few paces in front of his
dying mother.
She was sitting just as she had been left, but the fire had gone out,
and she trembled violently beneath the blanket which she had sought to
pull closer around her wasted form. Dick blamed himself mentally for
having put so little wood on the fire, and proceeded to rekindle it;
but, before doing so, he took a chain from his saddle-bow, with which he
fastened the Indian to a tree that stood exactly opposite the spot on
which the old woman sat, and not ten paces distant. He bound him in
such a way that he could sit on the ground and lean his back against the
tree, but he could neither stand up nor lie down.
For the first time the countenance of the savage betrayed uneasiness.
He believed, no doubt, that he was to be left to witness the dying
agonies of his mother, and the thought filled him with horror. To leave
her, as he did, to perish, had not been difficult, because he knew that
he should not see the act of perishing; but to be brought there and
compelled to witness this terrible doom acted out in all its minute and
horrible details on the mother whom he had once loved so tenderly, was
maddening to think of. All the dread tortures that had yet been
invented and practised on warriors must have seemed to him as nothing
compared with this awful device of the pale-face, on whom he now glared
with the eyes of implacable hate and ferocity.
"Will the pale-face," he said fiercely, "cast me loose, and meet me hand
to hand in a fair fight? Surely," he added, changing his tone to one of
ineffable scorn, "the pale-face is not weak, he is not a small man, that
he should fear a chief like Bighorn."
"Hark'ee! Bighorn," said Dick, striding up to him, and laying the cold
edge of his hatchet on the Indian's forehead; "if you speak another word
above yer breath, the pale-face will cleave ye to the chin."
There was something so thoroughly resolute in Dick's voice that the
Indian was cowed effectually.
The fire was soon lighted, and Dick chafed and warmed the limbs of the
old woman until he brought back the vital spark. Then he set on the
kettle to boil. While a new mess was preparing, he went into the wood,
and, with lusty blows, brought down the trees and cut them into huge
billets, which he piled upon the fire until it roared again, and the
heart of the feeble creature began to beat once more with somewhat of
its wonted vigour. This done, he arranged a couch in such a way that
she might get the full benefit of the heat without being scorched; after
which he rubbed down his good steed and cast it loose to feed. Then he
cooked and ate some food, but offered never a bit to the Indian, who
gazed at him as he performed these various actions with ever-increasing
amazement and anxiety.
Then Dick sat down beside the old woman, to feed and tend her till she
should die; and he knew the signs of death too well to suppose that his
care would long be required. All that day, and all that night, and all
the next day, did the trapper, the old woman, and the Indian, remain in
much the same position. Dick moved about a little, to give the old
woman food and drink as she required it, and to wrap the blanket more
comfortably round her, for which kind deeds the poor creature often
tried to gaze fondly in his face with her sightless eyes.
During all this time her son sat opposite, observing every look and
motion, yet unable himself to move. The pangs of hunger now began to
gnaw within him, and from his cramped position, he became so cold that
he trembled violently in every limb, despite his efforts to command
himself. But Dick paid no attention whatever to him; he knew that he
was strong, and could stand it. Once the Indian implored his jailer to
give him some food, but Dick said sternly, "I'll give ye food before ye
die, _if ye keep quiet_."
At last, about nightfall of the second day, the sands of life began to
run slowly. Dick saw that the old woman's end was approaching, so he
rose, and, going towards her son, he placed food before him. He
devoured it ravenously. Then he gave him drink, and, loosing him, led
him to the fire, where he speedily recovered his wonted heat and energy.
After that, Dick led him to his mother's side and made him kneel.
"Mother," said Dick, "can you see and hear me?"
"Ay; but you are not my son," said the dying woman faintly. "You are a
pale-face--you are very good--but you are not my son."
"True, mother; but see, I have brought your son back to you!--Lay your
hand on her forehead," he added in that low, stern undertone which he
had used throughout to Bighorn, who could not but obey. "Stroke her
head, look in her eyes, and speak to her."
The redman did not require to be told now. A natural impulse led him to
do as he was bid. The instant the tones of his voice struck her ear,
the old woman seemed to awaken with a start; she looked up eagerly,
caught the hand that touched her forehead, and, passing her own thin
hand up to the Indian's face, felt the scar over his eye, as if to
render herself doubly sure. Then she grasped the hand again in both of
hers, and, taking it under the blanket, pressed it to her withered
breast and held it tightly there.
But that burst of unexpected joy hastened the falling of the last few
grains of sand. For ten minutes longer they watched her as the breath
went and came more and more feebly. Then it ceased altogether, and
death sealed her eyes. But she did not release the hand of her son. He
had some difficulty in loosening that clasp of maternal love which was
stronger even than death.
After all was over, Dick seized the Indian and led him to the tree, to
which he chained him again. Then he dug a grave in the soft soil, in
which he placed the body of the old woman with gentle care. Having
covered it over he went into the woods, caught and saddled his horse,
and led him towards the wondering savage, whom he once more unbound and
set free.
"Bighorn," said Dick impressively, "you've been made to comfort and
gladden the heart o' yer old mother in her last moments. If ye was a
pale-face, ye'd thank the Great Spirit for that to the last day o' yer
life. If ye ever do come to think like the pale-faces, you'll remember
that you've to thank me for bringing ye here. Go, tell the redskins who
it is that caught ye, and what he did and said to ye."
Saying this, Dick mounted his horse and rode very slowly into the
forest, leaving the redman standing by the side of his mother's grave.
After Mary had concluded this story, which, we may remark, she related
with much fewer comments than we have seen fit to pass upon it, she and
March looked at each other for a long time in silence. Then March
suddenly exclaimed--
"He's a splendid fellow--Dick!"
Mary, both by looks and words, highly approved of this opinion. "And
yet," said she somewhat abstractedly, "this bees the man who peepils
call--"
Mary pursed her lips suddenly.
"Call _what_?" inquired March quickly.
"Wicked, wild, bad man," replied Mary, who, fortunately, could say all
this with perfect truth without betraying her secret. In fact, poor
Mary had never had a secret confided to her before, and having been told
by the Wild Man of the West that she was on no account to reveal his
real title to their guest, she was in the utmost perplexity lest it
should slip out unawares.
"Mary," said March, who was always stumbling upon the verge of the truth
in a most unaccountable way, without actually getting hold of it, "have
you ever seen the Wild Man of the West?"
"Yes," replied the girl with a gay smile.
"Have you? Well now, that's odd! How much I should like to see him.
To tell you the truth, one of my chief reasons for coming here was to
see him. What like is he?"
"Like Dick," replied the girl quietly.
"Like Dick!" echoed March in surprise; "why, that's what Dick said
himself, and yet, by all accounts, his character must be very different
from that of Dick, who seems to be the kindest, tenderest-hearted man
that ever came to trap in the Rocky Mountains."
"What does peepil say 'bout this Wild Mans of the West?" inquired Mary.
"That he's awful fierce an' terrible cruel, an' ten or fifteen feet
high, I forget which, for everybody gives him a different height."