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Some they'll tell you she's sunk down to the ways of Injuns, clean out of a white man's sight in the dirt and doin's of them dead-horse eatin' 'Rapahoes. But I know she ain't. She lets herself down on a level to reach 'em, and git her hands under 'em so she can lift 'em up, the same as she puts herself on my level when she wants to reach me, or your level, or anybody's level, mom."
Thur wur a sight o' mountainy men thur, at the time, that wa'n't the fellurs to see this child put down on the parairar for nuthin'. Yander's the critter!" and Rube pointed to the old mare. "The rifle I gin to Bill, an' kep Tar-guts instead, seeing she wur a better gun." "So you got square with the Rapahoes?" "That, young fellur, justs rests on what 'ee 'ud call squar.
Do 'ee see these hyur nicks: them standin' sep'rate?" And the trapper pointed to a row of small notches cut in the stock of his rifle. "Ay, ay!" cried several men in reply. "Thur's five o' 'em, ain't thur?" "One, two, three; yes, five." "Them's Rapahoes!" Rube's story was ended.
As you perceive, their young chief is named so, and after him. The trapper and he were sworn friends brothers or more like father and son: since Don Jose was much the older." "Were friends. Are they not so still?" "Valga me dios! No. That is no longer possible. Don Jose has gone under was rubbed out more than three months ago, and by these very Rapahoes!
We are not the first party of white men besieged by these barbarous robbers; and if it be our fate to fall, we shall not be their first victims. Many a brave "mountain-man" has already fallen a victim to their fiendish grasp. Scarcely a trapper who cannot tell of some comrade, who has been "rubbed" out by Red-Hand and his "Rapahoes." The council of the chiefs continues for some time.
"Wal," commenced Rube, after a moment's silence, "'twur about six yeern ago, I wur set afoot on the Arkansaw, by the Rapahoes, leastwise two hunder mile below the Big Timmer. The cussed skunks tuk hoss, beaver, an' all. He! he!" continued the speaker with a chuckle; "he! he! they mout 'a did as well an' let ole Rube alone." "I reckon that, too," remarked a hunter.
"These are the wagons of old Chase," says the strange hunter: "they're going right into the Rapahoe trap," cries Kilbuck. "I knew the name of Chase years ago," says La Bonte in a low tone, "and I should hate the worst kind to have mischief happen to any one that bore it. This trail is fresh as paint, and it goes against me to let these simple critters help the Rapahoes to their own hair.
My reply to the third will require more words; and before giving it, I shall answer the fourth by saying that the girl was taken from the Rapahoes by Don Jose." "Don Jose who is Don Jose?" "Oh! perhaps you would know him by his American name Oaquer?" "Walker, the celebrated trapper? Joe Walker?" "The same, amigo. Oaquara, the Utahs pronounce it.
I did, and the darned red devils made for the open prairie with my animals. I tell you, I was mad, but I kept hid for more than an hour. Suddenly I heard a tramping in the bushes, and in breaks my little gray mule. Thinks I them 'Rapahoes ain't smart; so tied her to grass. But the Injuns had scared the beaver so, I stays in my camp, eating my lariat.
"It are this then I'm larfin' at," replied Rube, sobering down a little, "I wa'n't at Bent's three days when who do 'ee think shed kum to the Fort?" "Who? Maybe the Rapahoes!" "Them same Injuns; an' the very niggurs as set me afoot. They kum to the Fort to trade wi' Bill, an' thur I sees both my old mar an' rifle!" "You got them back then?" "That wur likely.
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