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Updated: May 15, 2025
When you have rested a bit and have recovered some of your strength, Bud and I will rig up a stretcher out of the bearskin and carry you home between us; and then, when you are comfortably fixed in a soft bed, you can tell us all about this wonderful cave of gold."
Old Long-Beard paused in his narrative, licked his greasy fingers, and wiped them on his naked sides where his one piece of ragged bearskin failed to cover him. Crouched around him, on their hams, were three young men, his grandsons, Deer-Runner, Yellow-Head, and Afraid-of-the-Dark. In appearance they were much the same. Skins of wild animals partly covered them.
Receiving no reply, he continued: "When I came to light the fire, so as to have the building warm for your arrival, I noticed how bare the room looked, and turned over in my mind how to improve its appearance, and so brought these over. That bearskin rug is from one of the finest grizzlies ever seen in the North. I brought him down one morning when he was about to make a breakfast of me."
So did she sit, smiling, wondering, with the fringes of her sash between her fingers, while the sun sank behind the opposite wall of the quadrangle, and the shadows crept out across the grass, thirsty for the dew. The clock in the Warden's drawing-room had just struck eight, and already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white bearskin hearthrug.
There is no beggary among these strong-souled men of the far North, and Jan's lips did not beg. He unwrapped the bearskin, and whispered: "For the museek of the violon somet'ing to eat!" He played, even as the words fell from him, but only for a moment for the bow slipped from his nerveless grip and his head sank forward upon his breast.
Again he asked, "Where did you get the bearskin that I saw hanging outside the door?" She was afraid to tell him the truth, so she said, "A boat came here with many men in it and they gave me the skin." The boy did not believe her story. He was sure that it was the skin of the bear he had shot. But he said nothing more.
This he only departed from once, to describe to her a valuable grizzly bearskin which he had seen that day for sale at Indian Spring, with a view to divining her possible acceptance of it for a "buggy robe;" and once to comment upon a ring which she had inadvertently disclosed in pulling off her glove.
The children had fallen asleep on the bearskin rug. Mrs. Zane and Betty had heard the Colonel's voice, and sat with white faces, waiting, waiting for they knew not what. A familiar, light-moccasined tread sounded on the path, a tall figure loomed up from the darkness; it came up the path, passed up the steps, and crossed the threshold. "Wetzel!" exclaimed Col. Zane and Capt. Boggs.
"This is splendid," he agreed, when they had completed a tour of inspection. "But where are my blue-prints?" "In the drafting-room, where they belong. This room is for rest and sleep. We want to see it in this condition when we come back." "Where did you find the fur rug?" He indicated a thick bearskin beside the bed. "We stole it from Mr. Parker," they confessed, shamelessly. "He had two."
Then he dropped to all fours again and drew his bearskin closely about him and that was the last flicker of human intelligence that he showed. The next morning the men made a small platform of some loose boards to which they tied the lunatic. He fought desperately against his bonds, and it required the combined strength of all the men of the party to fasten him securely to the platform.
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