CHAPTER V. IN THE CANON.

As we have intimated in another place, old Stebbins and Black Tom were veteran trappers who had been in the “profession” a goodly number of years. Both men had families in Independence, Missouri; and, as the incidents we are giving are supposed to have occurred fully a score of years ago, it will be seen that they were engaged in a most dangerous business.

But they had grown so accustomed to its hardships and perils, that when they left home in each autumn, they felt scarcely different from the traveling-agent, who starts upon his tour of several weeks. Both were strongly attached to their wives and children, and were free from the rough, careless habits of dissipation that so often distinguish such men.

In the spring preceding the opening of our story, the two trappers and Teddy O’Doherty were returning homeward with a plentiful supply of peltries, having three horses, besides those they rode, laden down with them, and they were in the highest spirits at the success of their winter’s work. Reaching a point a short distance from where we saw them encamped, they halted for the night.

Nothing unusual occurred during the night; but in the morning, when old Stebbins went to a small rivulet near by to drink, he discovered a number of shining particles in the sand, which he instantly recognized as gold. He instituted an examination, and found that in several places it was quite abundant, showing that it would amply repay working. He returned to the camp with the information, when Black Tom came in with confirmatory evidence. Near the spot where his comrade had leaned down to drink, he had accidentally loosened a large, flat stone, which he overturned and found any quantity of the auriferous particles. Putting this and that together, the trio came to the conclusion that they had accidentally struck a “gold mine,” and that with care and industry they could easily make their fortune.

The question was then discussed whether they should remain where they were, and follow up the prize that was so nearly in their grasp. Teddy O’Doherty was strongly in favor of it, but the two hunters had families who would look anxiously for them if they overstaid their time, and they had a load of peltries, very valuable, that made the “bird in the hand,” and they were anxious to dispose of them before returning upon any other undertaking.

So, after a careful consideration of the matter, it was decided to press on toward the States, to dispose of their stock, and then return to prosecute their search for gold. This was done; but the return of the hunters was much delayed by the sickness of a child of old Stebbins, who was not considered out of danger for several months. Finally, however, it recovered entirely, and the three set out upon what was to prove a most eventful journey.

By this time it was late in summer, and would soon be time for trapping operations to begin. But the three came without their pack-horses, fully determined to devote all their energies to the hunting for gold.

There was the one “lion in their path,” the dreaded monster, to which we have made such frequent reference, and which, it will be remembered, was seen by them on their return trip homeward, at the time of the discovery of gold.

Had old Stebbins and Black Tom been single men, it is very doubtful whether the attraction of gold would have been sufficient to lead them into a region that was known to contain such an anomaly; but the prospect of placing their families in easy circumstances for life drew them onward, and thus we find them prosecuting their search for the precious metal in the face of such a hideous monster.

It is not often that a man finds a short and easy road to wealth; and, besides the ever-threatening peril of the beast, they made the unwelcome discovery that there were people in this region ahead of them.

This proved that our friends were not alone in their knowledge of the presence of gold in this secluded part of the world, and it looked no ways improbable that they might encounter serious opposition and trouble from them.

Thus they had the four-legged terror, the Blackfeet, and the unknown white men to encounter before they could hope to go back to the United States with “coffers filled.”

It will be recollected that on the night of Teddy O’Doherty’s first encounter with the brute, he saw and spoke to a strange man that passed near him--a stranger who was on foot, and who refused to pause and make known his identity to him.

The presence of this white man, they believed, indicated the presence of others, and it thus behooved our friends to use the utmost circumspection in their movements. They were scarcely a half day’s journey from their destination, and it lacked yet an hour or two of noon, when they reined up their horses for what they intended should be the long halt.

Here was capital hunting-grounds, and it was only a few miles beyond this where it was better, and where they had spent several years in the business. There were hills and mountains, rivers, streams, cañons, prairies, woods, and the most romantic diversification of land; there were abundant places where they could approach within a dozen feet of a foe, without seeing him.

They knew the ground well, and the wonder was that as gold seemed to be all about them in such abundance, they had never detected the indications of it before.

A secluded place was discovered, where their horses were turned loose to roam free and get themselves in prime condition, while their owners were seeking to put their pockets in the same healthy state.

In a rude, cavern-like structure, made by the jumbling of immense masses of rock together in a remote period of the world, the trappers placed their saddles and luggage, while, carrying their rides and spades, they set out upon a prospecting tour.

“I wonder if that ar’ critter is anywhar ’bout yer,” remarked Black Tom, as they moved away together.

“I don’t,” replied old Stebbins.

“Why not?”

“’Cause yonder he is this very minute.”

As he spoke, the old hunter pointed upward to the top of a cliff, full five hundred feet above them, and several hundred yards distant. There, in full relief against the blue sky, stood the beast, his ungainly body so strangely striped and ringed, and its appearance so singular as to be almost indescribable.

For a minute the three men looked at it in silence, and then Teddy O’Doherty removed his coonskin cap and made a low obeisance.

“What’s that for?” asked Black Tom.

“I s’lute him, jist as the gintry in Tipperary used to s’lute me when they saw me ridin’ by on me own jackass, that belonged to another man. The baast is a gintleman, so long as he uses me in the shtyle of last night.”

“You’d better keep cl’ar of him, so long as you can.”

“I shan’t bother him, nor persoom too much on his good nature.”

“’Sh! thar he goes.”

From his high elevation came the faint sound of his peculiar bark, and then the brute turned about, and was immediately lost to view.

“Thar’s no tellin’ whar he’ll next turn up,” said Stebbins, as the three moved forward again.

“No; and I don’t believe when we meet him again, that we’ll get off so easy as before,” replied Black Tom.

The gold-hunters were now in a sort of deep cañon or rent in the mountain, through which ran a small stream of icy-clear water. It was this same rivulet that had displayed the golden particles to old Stebbins, but it was at a point higher up, before it entered into this wild region, and it was now the intention of the three to follow up the stream for a considerable distance, searching it carefully for the same precious metal that had drawn them hither.

In prospecting thus, it was evident that it was necessary to keep a good look-out; and, as Teddy manifested such an appreciation of the nameless brute, that task was deputized to him, while the others were to scrutinize the bed of the small stream for what had caused them to halt in this place.

For several hours the party made their way up the tiny brook without discovering the first indications of gold; yet, they were not discouraged by the fact, for they knew there was plenty of it in the neighborhood.

They had almost reached the spot where they had seen it a few months before, when Stebbins, who was slightly in advance halted, and snuffed the air with the manner of one who scented something suspicious.

“What is it?” asked Black Tom, failing to understand what it meant.

“We’re near something dead--hello!”

As he spoke, the old hunter pointed to a clump of bushes that surmounted a mass of rocks and gravel, seemingly without any soil to give them existence. From it a huge bird, gorged almost to bursting, laboriously rose a few feet in the air, and floated sluggishly down the cañon, a hundred yards or so, when it landed upon a cliff, at a moderate elevation, and then stepped heavily around, so as to face and watch the men that had disturbed him.

“That’s whar it is,” said Tom, looking toward the bushes.

The next minute the three moved toward the spot indicated. Their lives had accustomed them to many repulsive and terrible scenes, but all were visibly shocked by what they saw.

It was a magnificently-formed Blackfoot warrior, lying flat upon his back, while the bird had been tearing its meal from his vitals. He had undoubtedly been dead several days, else the odor would not have penetrated so far, but there was no bullet-mark upon his person, so far as the three could see without a more minute examination than any chose to make.

“What killed him?” asked Black Tom.

“The beast,” was the instant answer of Teddy.

“What makes you say that?” asked Tom, turning rather sharply upon the Irishman.

“Look how his hid is broke in,” replied Teddy, as he pointed downward. “Thar ar’ only two things that could break it in that shtyle.”

“Wal, what are they?”

“A shillalegh or the baste; and, as there is no one prisent that can wield the shillalegh but your humble servant, Teddy O’Doherty, be the same towken it must have bin the baste.”

The trappers acquiesced in the decision of their companion, and felt certain that the Blackfoot had been a victim to the fury of the brute that had so terrified them. It was plain that he had been struck a terrible blow on the head and face, a blow that had crushed in his skull as though it were an egg-shell.

Here there was a demonstration of what this fearful creature could do, when excited by anger, and it sent a natural shudder through the whole three.

“I tell yer,” said old Stebbins, in a solemn undertone, “it wouldn’t take much to turn me back ag’in toward the States.”

Black Tom was silent a moment, and then shook his head.

“No; thar’s gold around us, and we’ll stay long ’nough to git some of it to pay fur comin’ hyar.”

“I’d rather have the Blackfeet swarmin’ all around, than that ar’ single critter.”

“So would I; but how you goin’ to help it?”

“Kaap with me,” said Teddy. “The baste and mesilf ar’ on the bist of terms, as me Bridget remarked whin she threw her parlor-sofa (that she used as a bootjack) at me hid, and by r’ason of me prisence wid yees, ye’ll be thrated in the same ilegant shtyle.”

All this might be true, but there was little probability of it, and the two trappers were too great veterans in the service to place any reliance upon it. Indeed they believed it would be fatal foolhardiness for the Irishman to trust himself in its power again.

But they saw no remedy except to retreat, and they were not yet prepared for that. So they returned to the brook and resumed their hunt for the gold.

By this time the afternoon was well nigh passed, and little time was left for them to continue their work. They had nigh reached the place where they had discovered the auriferous particles the preceding spring, and they pressed on until they saw the yellow ore gleaming under the crystal waters, just as it had gleamed there for many a long year.

“Here’s some of the stuff any way,” said Black Tom, after he had lifted a lot in his hand and carefully scrutinized it.

“Yes; thar’s no mistake ’bout _that_,” replied old Stebbins. “We kin begin work right here, and make more in a day, than in a week by trapping. So, what do yer say? Do we resoom?”

“In the mornin’; we’ll take a sleep on it.”

Gathering up their implements, they started on their return. By the time they were fairly in the cañon again it was fully dark, and, walled in as they were on either hand by such high, rocky cliffs, the darkness became so profound that they could scarcely see a step before them.

But they remembered the route too well to go astray, and they moved cautiously but unhesitatingly forward in the direction of the cavern that they had selected for their home, while at work in this region.

At the upper end of the cañon, indeed before it narrowed enough really to deserve the name, there was a mass of trees and undergrowth, through which the three hunters were making their way, when Black Tom uttered his low, sudden “’sh!” of alarm.

The others paused and listened, and looked around to learn the cause of this signal of their companion.

Like the faint twinkle of a star low down in the horizon, the three caught the glimmer of a camp-fire in this mass of vegetation and undergrowth.

“I knowed thar war others ’bout,” said Black Tom, after a moment’s pause; “whether they’re red or white-skins, we can’t tell till we find out.”

“Let’s do it,” said old Stebbins, and simultaneously the three set out toward the point of light, moving in the stealthy, silent manner that had become almost a second nature to them; but they had not gone far when Tom paused and said:

“Go ahead and l’arn what yer can, and I’ll go down to the cavern and wait for ye. Thar’s no need of all of us goin’ there.”

The trapper moved away from them as he spoke, not waiting to hear their opinions; and, as each party met with a curious adventure very shortly after, we will proceed to give them in detail.