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The Blackfeet remained secure in their intrenchment. At last Jim Beckwith lost patience. "You are all fools and old women," he said to the Crows; "come with me, if any of you are brave enough, and I will show you how to fight." He threw off his trapper's frock of buckskin and stripped himself naked like the Indians themselves.
The first night which would admit of open water, thirty-one wolves fell in the grip of poison. It was give and take thereafter, not an eye for an eye, but in a ratio of ten to one. The dug-out looked like a trapper's cave, carpeted with peltry, while every trace of sentiment for the enemy, in the wintry trial which followed, died out in the hearts of the boys.
Fires were made in hopes of attracting the trapper's attention and inducing him to cross the river in his boat, but as they learned the next day, though they were seen, the dark rainy night prevented his going over to find out what they meant. The last shot cartridge was used that night on a partridge, and the red squirrels went unmolested thereafter.
And I will admit it, Rover, that the Lord gave ye a great gift in yer nose, so that ye be able to desarn the difference atween the scent of an honest trapper's moccasin and that of a vagabond. But that isn't to the p'int, Rover.
It was a new doctrine for the banker one he had never been accustomed to; and yet when he thought it over, and recalled the look in the old trapper's face and the hearty humour and independence of the Clown, he felt instantly that Holcomb was right. Something else must be done for them but not money.
Once they reached the trapper's cabin, and came under the cheerful influence of that crackling fire, even Toby's spirits rose again. He had by this time recovered some of his usual grit, and could afford to laugh with the rest at his recent experience. It was about as Trapper Jim suspected. Toby had been tempted to follow the lame rabbit for some little distance into the woods.
Still Rob was so interested with the accounts of the old trapper's adventures, that he begged he would let him go with him some time into the woods to hunt. Old Marks readily promised to take Rob with him. They travelled on cheerily, talking on these subjects, though the snow fell so thickly that at last it became heavy work to walk through it.
To which Miss Trapper replied, "I don't know." Though the observation was not encouraging, it was, on the other hand, not entirely forbidding. "Since we are to be separated for three months, Miss Trapper, might I solicit the great privilege of corresponding with you occasionally?" Miss Trapper's thin lips expelled two words, like shot out of a gun: "What for?"
For a moment Yan sank down in terror. His lips refused to move. But the remembrance of the cow came to help him. He got up and ran down the road as fast as he could go, a cold sweat on him. He ran so blindly he almost ran into a man who shouted "Ho, Yan; is that you?" It was Caleb coming to meet him. Yan could not speak. He was trembling so violently that he had to cling to the Trapper's arm.
And the charm sufficed; for suddenly of a cheerless morning they came upon a trapper's hut in the wilderness, where their sufferings ceased, and the sight of Shon's eyes came back. When strength returned also, they journeyed to an Indian village, where a priest laboured.
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