CHAPTER XXX.

OSCAR HAS A VISITOR.

When Big Thompson returned from his hunt, half an hour later, carrying over his shoulder a haunch of venison wrapped in the skin of a red deer, he was astonished to find his employer hard at work gathering a supply of fuel. His bed of boughs had been removed, and its place was occupied by a roaring fire, which had been kindled close against the base of the rock.

“I did that because we haven’t any blankets, and the night promises to be a cold one,” said Oscar, who was himself again. “As soon as the ground and the rock are sufficiently warmed we’ll take the fire away, put our beds there, and sleep as comfortably as we could in the cabin.”

“Sho!” exclaimed the guide. “I have warmed my bed that way lots of times. But who larnt ye so much?”

“I got the idea from a book I read long ago.”

The guide, who had often wondered at his young employer’s knowledge of woodcraft, was obliged to confess that books might be of some use, after all.

They had certainly been of use to Oscar, who knew many things about a hunter’s life with which the majority of sportsmen into whose company Big Thompson had been thrown were entirely unacquainted.

By the time the steaks which the hunter cut from the haunch had been broiled on the coals, Oscar had thrown together a pile of firewood large enough to last all night. The fire threw out a very bright light; and, by the aid of it, he worked at his bear until nearly twelve o’clock.

Big Thompson had in the meantime raked the fire away from the rock and placed two beds of boughs there, and when Oscar took possession of the one that had been arranged for himself he was surprised to find how warm and comfortable it was.

His sleep was sound and refreshing, in spite of the want of blankets; and the next morning’s breakfast, although it consisted of nothing but a piece of venison washed down with a cup of cold water from the brook, was eaten with a relish.

At nine o’clock the hunters started for their camp in the valley, Big Thompson leading the way with the skin and bones of Old Ephraim on his back, and Oscar following with the hide of the red deer, which was much too valuable to be left behind for the wolves.

The boy’s load grew larger and heavier before they reached the cabin, for they stopped on the way to look at his traps. Some of them had been sprung without catching anything; in others the bait was missing (this proved that that thieving wolverine had been at it again); but the rest had done their full duty, and twenty dollars’ worth of skins were that night added to those that were to be sold to replace the amount he had taken from the committee’s money.

The third day after this was the one Big Thompson had set for his departure for the post. He and his employer were up at four o’clock, and while one was preparing breakfast and making up a bundle of provisions for the journey, the other brightened up the fire and sat by it while he wrote a hasty letter to the secretary of the committee and to Sam Hynes, in both of which he gave a short account of the manner in which he had secured the skin of the first grizzly.

He told Sam that he intended to accompany his guide a mile or two on his journey; but instead of that he went with him to the mouth of the gorge, which was at least twelve miles from the camp.

When they reached it Big Thompson put on his snow-shoes and turned to take leave of his companion, and this time he showed considerable feeling over it. He had not yet forgotten that the boy had saved his life.

“Now, perfessor,” said he, extending his hand, which Oscar took after some hesitation, “thar’s one thing I see about ye that I don’t seem to like fust-rate. Ye haint been trounced half enough, kase ye haint never been larnt how to mind. I told ye, t’other day, to go straight to the cabin an’ stay thar; but when I cum back I found ye camped thar under the bluff. Sich doin’s as them won’t go down with Big Thompson. Now I tell ye ag’in to draw a bee-line for the shanty; an’ that don’t mean for ye to go philanderin’ off alone by yerself in the hills. ’Taint kase I’m afeard of yer bein’ chawed up by some varmint, fur a boy who kin kill the fust grizzly he ever seed with one bullet is able to take keer on hisself. ’Taint that I’m afeard of, but it’s somehow kinder been a-runnin’ in my mind that sunthin’s goin’ to happen to ye; an’ if ye say the word I won’t budge another inch.”

“Nonsense!” laughed Oscar. “I tell you to go, and may good luck attend you. If there are any letters or papers for me at the post I want them.”

“_Very_ good; yer the boss. But when I tell ye to keep outen them hills ye’d best do it; kase why, I’ve knowed better hunters than me an’ you ever dare be to go off alone by theirselves an’ never come back. It’s mighty easy, when the snow’s as deep as it is now, fur a feller to roll over into a gulch an’ break his leg or twist his ankle, an’ if ye done that ye’d freeze or starve without nobody to help ye. I’ve knowed sich things to happen more’n onct.”

“Don’t worry about that,” replied Oscar. “I promise you that I’ll not go out of the valley while you are gone. I will do no hunting at all until I get out of meat. Now good-by. Don’t waste an hour, for I shall be lonely without you. And I say, Thompson, don’t forget to bring that thing, whatever it is, that you use in hunting mule-deer.”

The guide turned away without making any reply. He could not trust himself to speak.

Oscar, who stood there leaning on his rifle, and watching him as he moved rapidly on his snow-shoes over the tops of the drifts, little dreamed how hard it was for the hunter to set out on his lonely tramp that morning.

He cared nothing at all for the journey, for he had often made longer and more difficult ones; but, somehow, his heart had grown very tender toward the boy of late, and he could not bear to part from him.

The guide never stopped to look back. Oscar kept his eyes fastened upon him as long as he remained in sight, and when at last he disappeared around a bend in the gorge the young hunter shouldered his rifle and turned his face toward the brook.

“He’ll certainly succeed this time,” said he to himself; “and when he comes back I shall have letters from home. In the meantime I shall learn how it seems to be alone in the hills. Thompson needn’t be at all afraid that I shall go out of the valley. I have no desire to meet Old Ephraim’s brother, and if I should happen to fall over a cliff and hurt myself I should be in a fix indeed. I never thought of that.”

The guide’s traps and deadfalls, which were all set in the lower end of the valley, were better than his own, or else that wolverine never visited them, for in every one that was sprung that morning the boy found something to take home with him.

They were all carefully reset, fresh bait was supplied for those that needed it, and Oscar spent so much time at this work that he did not reach the cabin until near the middle of the afternoon.

The remaining hours of daylight were spent in replenishing the pile of wood at the door, and as soon as it began to grow dark the pony and mule were driven into their quarters for the night.

This done, Oscar shut himself in the cabin, and after eating a hearty supper went to work to remove and stretch the skins of the animals he had taken from the guide’s traps.

The cabin, which had always appeared so cheerful and inviting to him, was very gloomy now, and Oscar never before felt so lonely and down-hearted.

He had a good many days of this sort of life before him, for he knew that the guide could not make the journey in less than three weeks, and it was quite possible that four might elapse before they would again take each other by the hand.

A great many things might happen in that time, Oscar told himself; and, sure enough, some things _did_ happen to him that would certainly have been averted if Big Thompson had been there.

Oscar slept but little that night, and was glad when daylight came. While he was busy he did not have time to think how lonely he was, and before he left his blanket he made the mental resolution that every one of his waking hours should be devoted to some kind of work.

This particular day he intended to spend in visiting his own traps, and he began his round as soon as he had eaten his breakfast, released the mule and pony from their shelter, and cut down a cottonwood or two for them to browse upon.

The weather having become settled again, the animals that found pasturage in the valley were once more on the move; and while Oscar was walking toward the brook he crossed the trails of several deer. They were all fresh, and when he found one that was considerably larger than the rest he was strongly tempted to follow it, but he lacked the courage.

He had grown very timid since his encounter with the grizzly, and the fear of spraining an ankle, or breaking a leg by falling over the brink of some deep gorge, made him shudder.

“If I stay in the valley, as I was told to do, I shall be in no danger of meeting with such an accident,” thought he, as he forced his way through the willows toward the brook. “The deer will gain confidence if they are not disturbed during the next three or four weeks, and when Thompson returns there will still be time enough left to——Hello, here!”

Just at that moment Oscar came out of the willows and stopped on the bank of the brook in plain view of the spot on which he had set one of his steel traps.

He confidently expected to find something in it, but not only was he disappointed in this, but when he came to look a little closer he saw that the trap was missing.

“Aha,” thought the young hunter. “That rascally wolverine has been caught napping at last. He put his foot into the trap and dragged it away with him; but of course he left a broad trail, and I shall have no difficulty in following it.”

Oscar walked up the bank until he arrived opposite the spot on which the trap had been set, and there he stopped and stood motionless, looking the very picture of astonishment.

There was a trail there, but it was not such a trail as the wolverine makes. He had seen that often enough to be able to recognize it the moment he laid his eyes upon it.

The trap had been set in the bed of the stream—the water ran so rapidly that it did not freeze—but the chain that secured it led to the bank, where it was firmly fastened to a convenient root.

Knowing that the wolverine is a very strong animal, Oscar expected to find this chain broken; but instead of that he saw that it had been unfastened, and by human hands too, for right there on the edge of the bank were the prints of moccasined feet, showing where the thief had stood when he undid the chain.

He saw further that a trail made by those same feet led directly up the bank, and this suggested something to him.

Glancing quickly about among the willows to make sure that the thief was nowhere in sight, Oscar hurried down the stream as far as his trapping ground extended, following the trail all the way.

He found that it led to every one of his traps and deadfalls, and that every one of the former was missing. Some of the deadfalls were left undisturbed, for the reason, probably, that there was nothing in them; but all those that contained any game had been plundered.

Having satisfied himself on this point, Oscar retraced his steps to the spot where he first discovered the trail, and, taking it up again, followed it along the bank.

The thief had played the same game up here. He had made the entire round of Oscar’s traps, and the boy counted fourteen deadfalls which he was certain had been robbed.

“If each of them had a mink in it that rascal has made twenty-eight dollars, not counting the skins he must have taken out of some of the steel traps,” said Oscar, while he wished from the bottom of his heart that he was as large and strong as his guide, so that he could follow the thief and give him a good thrashing for what he had done. “If they were all fishers or martens he has made double that sum. Now who is he, and where is he? That’s the question. This trail looks like the one I saw on the day I shot my first mule-deer. The tracks are wide apart, and in one of them is the print of a patch on the bottom of the moccasin. I noticed that in the other trail. What’s to be done about it? Since he has found my traps, who knows but he has found Thompson’s too?”

When this thought passed through Oscar’s mind, he started at his best pace down the stream to see how far the depredations of the thief extended.

He did not, however, go all the way to the guide’s trapping grounds, for before he got there he saw enough to indicate that the thief had not been so far down the stream.

A short distance below the place from which Oscar’s first trap had been stolen the trail branched off from the brook and led toward the outer edge of the willows, from which the cabin could be distinctly seen. The thief had passed along here for half a mile or more, making frequent halts behind rocks and trees to reconnoitre the camp, and then the trail ran back across the brook and struck off through the open valley toward the hill on the opposite side.

After following it long enough to make sure that the thief came from those hills (remember that he had been following the back trail all this while), Oscar turned about and went back to the cabin.

Having put his rifle in its place over the door, Oscar sat down to think about it, and to make up his mind what he ought to do under the circumstances; and it was while he was thus engaged that a light step sounded outside the cabin, and the door, which he had left ajar, was pushed a little further open.

But Oscar did not know it, for he was wholly wrapped up in his meditations. The first thing that aroused him was the creaking of the wooden hinges. Then he looked up to see that a shaggy, uncombed head, covered with a greasy felt hat, had been thrust into the cabin. Under the hat was a most villainous and repulsive countenance that Oscar recognized at once.

Knowing the man and the reputation he bore, he jumped to his feet with an exclamation of astonishment, and made a dash for his rifle; but at the same instant the door was thrown wide open, and the tall, slouching figure of Lish the Wolfer barred his way.