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As to the boisterous mountain-man, his resolute little cousin made no secret of her detestation of him. She denied and defied him as openly as a girl could and heard his threats with continued indifference. She was quite alone, too, in her fear of any fatal meeting between the two men who seemed determined to pursue her.
As it is, hundreds of well-authenticated stories attest the prowess of this fierce creature. There is not a "mountain-man" in America who cannot relate a string of perilous adventures about the "grizzly bar;" and the instances are far from being few, in which human life has been sacrificed in conflicts with this savage beast.
"Have you any objection to tell it to me? I feel a singular interest in this young girl." "Sin duda! Of many a mountain-man, the same might be said; and many an Indian too. Hum! cavallero! you would not be flesh and blood, if you didn't." "Not that, I assure you. My interest in her springs from a different source. I have other reasons for inquiring into her history."
"Looky here, Sam Pitman," he began, "for a long-headed, sensible mountain-man you are plunging into more serious trouble than any chap of your size ever got into. I'm going to let you on to a thing that a fellow usually keeps quiet I'm going to do it because I feel that it is my Christian duty not to be a party to the great disaster you are on the brink of."
"We have not, O valiant men of the Mountain," he said, in a gentle tone, "looked upon your hill-tops with desire. We only wish to improve our swamps, increase our sweet-potato grounds, and live at peace." "That is not true," retorted the fiery Mountain-man, "and we must have a promise from you that you will let the swamps alone, and not advance one step nearer to the top of our mountain."
Of course we give the nearest equivalent in English that we can find for the vernacular used. "You and your greedy forefathers," resumed the Mountain-man, "have always kept your false eyes on our mountain-top, and you are looking at it still." "That's a lie," returned the man of Ratura with savage simplicity.
Mark Redwood was a celebrated "mountain-man" at that time, and Isaac Bradley will be recognised by many when I give him the name and title by which he was then known, viz. "Old Ike, the wolf-killer." Redwood rode a strong horse of the half-hunter breed, while the "wolf-killer" was mounted upon one of the scraggiest looking quadrupeds it would be possible to imagine an old mare "mustang."
I'll git to ye when I kin." The mountain-man was silent so long that Kerry thought he was done. But he suddenly said: "She ketched my sleeve, jest ez I made to start, an' said: 'I'll come, Andy. Mind, Andy, I'll come to ye, ef I live." Then there was the silence of sympathy between the two men. So that was the history of the crime a very different history from the one Kerry had heard.
Contrary to his command, Mrs. Smiley did endeavor to forget these words in the weeks following, when the old mountain-man came no more to her rose-embowered cottage, and when Captain Rumway invented many ingenious schemes for getting the pale school-teacher to take more recreation and fresh air.
The harmony of outline, the justness of proportion in both the face and figure of the man before him, filled the Irishman with delight; and the splendid virile bulk of the mountain-man appealed irresistibly to the other's masculinity. The little threads of silver in the tempestuous black curls seemed to Kerry but to set off their beauty. "Gosh! but you're a good-looker!" he muttered.
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