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"I'll do it best alone; leastwise I'll take only little Tolly Trevor an' Leapin' Buck with me, for they're both smart an' safe lads, and are burnin' keen to learn somethin' o' woodcraft." In accordance with this determination, Mahoghany Drake, Leaping Buck, and little Trevor set off next day and followed Tom Brixton's trail into the mountains.
If all these things is good for us both, why not smokin'?" "That's more than I can tell 'ee, lad," answered the honest trapper, with a somewhat puzzled look. If Mahoghany Drake had thought the matter out a little more closely he might perhaps have seen that smoking is as good for boys as for men or, what comes to much the same thing, is equally bad for both of them!
With a quiet laugh, Mahoghany Drake withdrew from the rocky ledge, and, followed by his eager satellites, continued to wend his way up the rugged mountain-sides, taking care, however, that he did not again expose himself to view, for well did he know that sharp eyes and ears would be on the qui vive that night.
Only one group had been checked, and, strange to say, that was the party that happened to cluster round and rush with their chief. But the reason was clear enough, for that section of the foe had been met by Mahoghany Drake, Bevan, Westly, Brixton, Flinders, and the rest, while Gashford at last met his match, in the person of the gigantic Stalker.
"I know and care not, Tolly, what those sort o' people did," said Tom; "and as Betty and I are not Adam and Eve, and the nineteenth century is not the first, we need not inquire." "I'll tell 'ee what," said Mahoghany Drake, "it's just comed into my mind that there's a missionary goes up once a year to an outlyin' post o' the fur-traders, an' this is about the very time.
But, look here, Mahoghany," continued the boy, with a troubled expression, "I've promised to go out on the lake to-day wi' Leaping Buck, an' I must keep my promise. You know you told us only last night in that story about the Chinaman and the grizzly that no true man ever breaks his promise."
"But the country has been kept for a long time in constant alarm and turmoil by these men," said Fred Westly, "and, although I like fighting as little as any man, I cannot help thinking that we owe it as a duty to society to capture as many of them as we can, especially now that we seem to have caught them in a sort of trap." "What says Mahoghany Drake on the subject!" asked Unaco.
"Oh! do sit down, Mahoghany," cried little Trevor, in a voice of entreaty; "I'm so fond of hearin' about grizzlies, an' I'd give all the world to meet one myself, so would Buckie here, wouldn't you?" The Indian boy, whose name Tolly had thus modified, tried to assent to this proposal by bending his little head in a stately manner, in imitation of his dignified father.
He wrote to Flinders begging him to come home and help him with his property, and Flinders accepted. He wrote to Mahoghany Drake and sent him a splendid rifle, besides good advice and many other things, at different times, too numerous to mention.
I knowed he couldn't resist the temptation," said Mahoghany, with a quiet chuckle, "an' it's not many boys no, nor yet men who could jump that. I wouldn't try it myself for a noo rifle no, though ye was to throw in a silver-mounted powder-horn to the bargain." "But you have jumped it?" cried the Indian boy, turning round with a gleeful face.
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