The Lost Trail Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And so, Teddy, ye're sayin' it war a white man that took away the missionary's wife."]

"Three months, come day after to-morrow. Begorrah, but it's not I that'll forgit that same date to my dying day, if, indade, I forgit it at all, at all, even whin somebody else will be wearin' me clothes."

"It was a dirty trick, freeze me if it wasn't; but you can _allers_ find a white man to do a mean trick, when you can't a copperskin; _that_ you may set down as a p'inted fact, Teddy."

"I belaves ye, Mister Tim. An Indian is a poor mean thing at the bist, an' their squaws--kah! they are the dirtiest beasts that iver jabbered human lingo; an' their babies, I raaly belaves, is caught with a hook an' line in the muddy creeks where the catfish breed; but, fur all that, I don't think they could have been equal to this piece of wickedness. May the divil git howld of his soul. Blazes, but won't there be a big squeal in purgatory when the divil gits howld of him!"

And Teddy seemed to contemplate the imaginary scene in Hades with a sense of intense satisfaction.

"But it's powerful strange you could never git on the trail. I don't boast of my own powers, but I'll lay if I'd been in the neighborhood, I'd 've found it and stuck to it like a bloodhound, till I'd 've throttled that thievin' wretch."

"The Sioux spent the bitter part of the day in the s'arch, an' meself an' siveral other savages has been looking iver since, and none of us have got so much as a scint of his shoe, bad luck to him."

"But, Teddy, what made him do it?" asked the trapper, turning his keen, searching eyes full upon him.

"There's where I can't answer yees."

"There be some men, I allow, so infarnal mean they'll do a mean thing just 'cause they _like_ to do it, and it might be he's one of them."

"It's meself that belaves he howlds some spite agin Mister Harvey for something done in years agone, and has taken this means of revinging himself upon the good man, as I am sure niver did one of his fellow-creatures any harm."

"It may be there's been ill-blood a long time atween 'em, but the missionary couldn't a done nothin' to give the rapscallion cause to run off with his wife, 'less he'd run off with this hunter's old woman before, and the hunter was paying him for it."

"Git out wid yer nonsense!" said Teddy, impatiently. "It couldn't been a great deal, or if it was, it couldn't been done purposely, for I've growed up wid Mister Harvey, and knowed him ever since he was knee high to a duck, and he was _always_ a boy that did more praying than fighting. The idea of _his_ harming anyone, is _pre-pos-te-trous._ After the haythen had fired at us, the good man actilly made me promise not to do the wretch hurt if the chance was given me; and a mighty foolish thing, for all it was Master Harvey who towld me, fur I've had a chance or two at the spalpaan since. Oh blissed Virgin, why _didn't_ I cut his wizzen for him whin I could have done it--that is, if I could!"

"And you've been huntin' 'im these three or four months be you?"

"The same, yer honor, huntin' constantly, niver losing a day rain or s.h.i.+ne, wid Indians an' widout 'em, cold, hungry and tired, but not a day of rist."

"Freeze me then, if you haven't got _grit_. Thar ain't many that would track through the woods that ar long. And ye haven't caught a glimpse of the gal nor heard nothin' of her?"

"Not a thing yet; but it's meself that 'xpacts to ivery day."

"In course, or ye wouldn' keep at the business. But s'pose, my friend, you go on this way for a year more--what then?"

"As long as I can thravel over the airth and Miss Cora isn't found, me faat shall niver find rest."

The trapper indulged in an incredulous smile.

"You'd be doing the same, Tim, if yees had iver laid eyes on Miss Cora or had iver heard her speak," said Teddy, as his eyes filled with tears. "G.o.d bliss her! she was worth a thousand such lives as mine--"

"Don't say nothin'" interrupted the trapper, endeavoring to conceal his agitation; "I've l'arned years ago what that business is. The copperskins robbed me of a prize I'll never git agin, long afore you'd ever seen one of the infarnal beings."

"Was she a swateheart?"

"Never mind--never mind; it'll do no good to speak of it now. She's _gone_--that's enough."

"How do you know she can't be got agin, whin--"

"She was tomahawked afore my eyes--ain't that enough?" demanded the trapper, indignantly.

"I axes pardon, but I was under the impression they had run away with her as they did with Miss Cora."

"Hang 'em, no! If they'd have done that I'd have chased 'em to the Pacific ocean and back agin afore I'd give 'em up."

"And that's what meself intends to do regarding Miss Cora."

"Yer see, yer don't know much about red-skins and their devilments, and therefore, it's my private opine, instead of getting the gal, they'll git you, and there'll be the end on't."

"Tim, couldn't yees make the s'arch wid me?" asked Teddy, in a deeply earnest voice. The trapper shook his head.

"Like to do't, but can't. It's time I was up to the beaver runs this night and had my traps set. Yer see I'm _compelled_ to be in St. Louey at the end of six months and hain't got a day to spare."

"Mister Harvey has money, or, if he hasn't, he has friends in St.

Louis, be the same token, that has abundance of it, and you'd find it paid you bitter in the ind than catching poor, innocent beavers, that niver did yees harm."

"I don't foller sich business for money, but I've agreed to be in St.

Louey at the time I was tellin' you, and it's allers a p'int of honor with me to keep my agreements."

"Couldn't yees be doing that, and this same thing, too?"

"Can't do't. S'pose I should git on the trail that is lost, can yer tell me how fur I'd have to foller it? Yer see I've been in that business afore, and know what it is. Me and three others once chased a band of Blackfeet, that had carried off an old man, till we could see the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and git a taste of the breath of wind that comes down from their ice and snow in middle summer."

"Didn't yees pursue the subjact any further?"

"We went fur enough to find that the nimble-footed dogs had got into the mountains, and that if we wanted to keep our ha'r, we'd only got to undertake to foller 'em thar. So we just tramped back agin, havin'

our trouble for nothin'."

"Wasn't that about as poor a business, for yees, as this be for me, barring yees was hunting for an old man and I'm hunting for a young woman?"

"It warn't as foolish by a long shot, 'cause we _war on the trail_ all the time, and kept it, while you've lost yours, and never'll be able to find it agin. We war so close more nor once that we reached their camp-fires afore the embers had died out and from the tops of two, three hills we got a glimpse on 'em on thar horses. We traveled all night a good many times, but it done no good as they done the same thing, and we found we war further away, if anything, next morning than we war at sundown. If we'd ever lost the trail so as not to find it we'd guv up and come home, but we never done that nor never lost more nor an hour in lookin' for it. You see," added the trapper, impressively, "you never have found the trail, and, therefore, there ain't the shadder of a chance."

"Begorrah, yees can't blame us whin we tried to the bist of our indeavor to find it and wasn't able."

"Yer done the best yer knowed, I s'pose; but why didn't four on 'em divide so as to let one go up one side the river and one t'other, and the same way down-stream. Yer don't s'pose that feller was able to keep paddlin' forever in the river, do yer? and jist so soon as he landed, jist so sure would one of them Sioux find the spot where he touched land, and foller him to his hole."

"Begorrah, if wees had only thought of that!"

"A Sioux is as cunning a red-skin as I ever found, and it's jist my opine every one of 'em _did_ think of that same thing, but they didn't try it for fear they might catch the varmint! They knew their man, rest a.s.sured o' that."

Teddy looked up as if he did not comprehend the meaning of the last remark.

"'Cordin' to yer own showin', one of them infarnal copper-gals was at the bottom of the hull business, and it's like as not the men knowed about it, too, and didn't _want_ to catch the gal!"

"There's where yees are mightily mistook, as Pat McGuire said whin his landlord called him honest, for ivery one of them same chocolate-colored gintlemen would have done their bist for Master Harvey. They would have cut that thaif's wizzen wid a mighty good will, I knows."

"Mebbe so, but I don't believe it!" said the hunter, with an incredulous shake of his head.

"Would ye have me give up the s'arch altogether?"