CHAPTER XXXIII.

LISH DECIDES TO MOVE.

The wolfer had brought Tom to the hills with him for a purpose. He intended to make him do all the drudgery of the camp, and to increase his own profits in the spring by stealing the skins the boy might find time to capture.

But Tom was not long in discovering that his catch was not likely to be very large. He was expected to cook all the meals and cut all the wood for the fire.

As their larder was not very well supplied, the cooking did not amount to much, but the chopping did.

Being more accustomed to handling a pen than he was to swinging an axe, he made very slow progress with this part of his work, and by the time it was done there were but a few hours of daylight left.

Still he did manage to take a few pelts, and it seemed to him that he ought to have taken more, for some of his baits were always missing, and on following up the trail that led from them, he not unfrequently found the carcasses of the wolves that had eaten the baits—minus the skins.

Lish was systematically robbing him. Knowing where the boy put out his baits, he visited them early every morning, taking as many skins as he thought he could without exciting his companion’s suspicion, and then going off to hunt up his own.

“He’ll never know the difference,” Lish often said to himself, “an’ I don’t reckon it makes any odds to me if he does, fur if he opens his yawp I’ll wear a hickory out over his back. The spelter’ll all be mine some day, anyhow. I aint a-goin’ to show him the way to this nice wolf ground an’ give him grub an’ pizen fur nothin’, I bet you!”

“This is some more of my honest partner’s work,” Tom would say when he found the body of a wolf from which the skin had been removed. “It beats the world what miserable luck I do have! I can’t make a cent, either honestly or dishonestly. Oscar knew what he was talking about when he said that Lish intended to rob me. Why didn’t I go up to the fort to see him, as he wanted me to do, instead of making myself unhappy over his good luck? If he were only here now how quickly I’d bundle up my share of the skins and find my way to his camp!”

We have said that things always went wrong with Lish, but that is not in strict accordance with the facts.

There was one hour in every twenty-four during which he allowed his good nature to triumph over the tyrant in his disposition, and that always happened at night, provided his own catch had been tolerably fair, and he had been able to steal a few skins from Tom without being caught in the act.

On these occasions Lish entered into friendly conversation with his partner over his pipe, during which he never failed to make a good many inquiries concerning Oscar and his business, and he seemed particularly desirous of finding out just how the young taxidermist looked and acted.

This led Tom to believe that Lish was greatly interested in his brother and his movements, and so he was; for he had not yet been able to settle down into the belief that his plan for keeping Oscar out of the hills would prove successful.

Through the influence of Big Thompson a compromise of some kind might be effected between Oscar and the ranchman, or the boy might purchase the stolen mule and wagon.

In either case he and his guide would be able to continue their journey with but little delay, and come into the valley in spite of the wolfer’s efforts to keep them away from it.

This was what Lish was afraid of, and it was one cause of his constant ill-humor.

When the snow fell and blocked the gorge he would feel safe, and not before. The wolfer knew Big Thompson, but Oscar he did not know,—he did not have time to take a very good look at him when he met him in the sage-brush,—and he wanted to learn all about him, so that he would be sure to recognize him if he chanced to encounter him in the valley. He had another idea in his head too; and what it was shall be told further on.

The wished-for storm came at last, and Tom was disposed to grumble sullenly when he awoke the next morning and found three inches of snow on his blanket; but Lish was as gay as a lark, and excited the suspicions of his companion by offering to help him prepare the breakfast.

All the wolfer’s fears were banished now. If Big Thompson was not in the valley already, he would not be likely to get there at all, for the gale must have filled the gorge full of snow. But Lish wanted to satisfy himself entirely on this point; so he left the camp as soon as he had eaten his bacon and cracker, and, after stealing a few skins from Tom, set out to visit the lower end of the valley.

On his way there, he struck the trail of two mule-deer, and this caused him to postpone his reconnoissance for the present. He was getting tired of bacon, and believing that a fresh steak for dinner would be more palatable, he took up the trail at once, and followed it at the top of his speed.

About two miles further on the trail left the valley and turned toward the hills. When Lish saw this he deposited his wolf-skins in the fork of a small tree, and having thus put himself in light running order, he went ahead faster than ever.

By the time he had run himself almost out of breath he had the satisfaction of discovering, by signs which an experienced hunter can readily detect, that he was closing in upon the game.

He had already begun to look around for it, when he was startled almost out of his moccasins by the report of a rifle, which sounded close at hand, followed by a tremendous crashing in the bushes, as a fine doe broke cover and dashed down a hill a short distance away.

Lish could easily have shot her, as she passed without seeing him; but he never thought of it. His whole mind was concentrated on something else. Who fired that gun? Being determined to find out, the wolfer ran to the edge of the bluff and looked over.

“That thar letter that Tom writ an’ put on to Ike Barker’s door didn’t stop ’em, arter all,” said Lish to himself, as he stretched his long neck out to its full length, and took a good survey of the hunter below him. “Here’s one of them pizen critters now. He’s gone an’ killed my black-tail, an’ now he’s a-yellin’ for Big Thompson. So ye’re the chap as wanted to have me put into the guard-house ag’in, be ye? Fur two cents I’d——”

The wolfer finished the sentence by drawing his rifle to his shoulder, as if he were about to shoot.

After taking a good aim at Oscar’s head he lowered the weapon and looked nervously about him, at the same time listening for Big Thompson’s reply. He wanted to see which way it came from, so that he could secure his own safety by running off in another direction.

But there was no answer to Oscar’s repeated calls, and the wolfer finally mustered up courage enough to start for camp, not forgetting to stop on the way and take down the bundle of skins he had left in the tree.

Hearing nothing of his dreaded enemy, his fears left him after a while, and he was able to think the matter over and make up his mind what he would do about it. One thing was certain—he dared not remain longer in that valley, for there was no knowing at what moment he and Big Thompson might run against each other in the woods. In order to avoid that it was necessary to break camp at once and start for new hunting grounds.

“I won’t tell Tom who them fellers is,” thought the wolfer as he neared his camp, “for if I do he’ll run off and jine ’em. Now whar is he, do ye reckon? He’s allers off when he’s wanted to hum.”

Tom, having completed his morning’s drudgery, had gone out to visit the baits he had scattered around the day before, and he did not come in until it was almost dark.

Lish waited and watched for him with no little impatience, constantly harassed by the fear that Tom would somehow discover that his brother was in the valley, in which case he knew that he would be obliged to pass the rest of the winter alone, doing all his own work about the camp, and catching all his own skins. Tom was too valuable an assistant to be given up, and the wolfer resolved to hold fast to him as long as he could.

Tom came in at last, staggering under the weight of his day’s catch, and was instantly put on his guard by the friendly greeting his partner extended to him.

The wolfer’s cordiality, however, was all assumed for the occasion. If Lish had acted out his feelings he would have abused Tom soundly for being so long absent from camp, and, in his rage, he might have done something even worse; but knowing that it would not be safe to say or do too much just then, he bottled up his wrath, to be held in reserve until some future occasion, and said cheerfully:

“Pard, ye’ve done fine; ye have so. An’ yer the green young feller that wanted me to show ye how to pizen wolves! Ye know more about the business now nor I do, an’ I’ve follered it a good many years. Now I reckon ye must be a trifle tired arter packin’ all them skins so fur, an’ if ye’ll cook the supper I’ll chop the wood.”

“What’s up, I wonder?” thought Tom, as he threw his hides down in one corner of the lean-to. “He don’t speak that way to me unless he wants me to do something for him. Well,” he added aloud, “where is it?”

“Whar’s what?” asked Lish.

“The deer, or whatever it was, that you shot. I heard the report of your gun.”

“So ye did; but I didn’t get him. I missed him.”

Lish put a stop to the conversation by grabbing the axe and going at the pile of fuel in front of the cabin as if he meant to do something; but when he had cut a few sticks of half-decayed wood he was tired enough to stop and rest.

“Say, pard,” he exclaimed, “I’ve been a prospectin’ to-day! The varmints aint by no means as plenty about yere as they had ought to be, but I know whar thar’s piles of ’em in a leetle valley ’bout ten miles deeper into the hills. We want to go whar the wolves is, ye know; so to-morrow mornin’ we’ll pack up bright an’ arly an’ dig out.”

“Oh, that’s what you want, is it?” thought Tom. “Well, I don’t care where we go. I’ve got to endure your detestable company all winter, I suppose, and I might as well be in one place as another. I shall not see a happy day anywhere.”

“What do ye say, pard?” exclaimed Lish.

“I say all right,” was the indifferent reply.

That this was all the wolfer wanted was evident from his actions. He threw down the axe, declaring that he was awful tired after his long tramp, and picking out the warmest place beside the fire, he took possession of it, leaving Tom to cook the supper and cut the wood besides.