seemed to be the conclusion of both, as they gave no further thought to the absent member of their party.
It was a mild day in late summer, before the vegetation had given any indication of the approaching cold season. The hunters had ventured thus early into the trapping-grounds for two reasons: one was to mislead the Blackfeet, who would be looking for their coming a month or two later, and the other reason will become apparent hereafter.
“To-morrow we’ll strike the trapping-grounds,” said old Stebbins, in his careless manner, as he lazily whiffed his pipe.
“It’s two months yet afore we need set our traps,” said Black Tom.
“That’ll give us plenty of time to find out all we want to,” replied his companion.
“Yas,” added the other, somewhat significantly; “we’ll l’arn whether thar’ll be any need of our ever settin’ them ag’in or not.”
“Not quite that,” said old Stebbins, with a laugh and shake of the head. “I don’t b’l’eve that.”
“I don’t know,” continued Black Tom, who seemed in the best of spirits; “it looked powerful like it when we had to dig out last spring.”
“It did, summat—”
“B’ars and beavers!” exclaimed Tom, suddenly coming to the upright position, jerking his coonskin hat from his head, and dashing it upon the ground, “don’t you remember, Steb.?”
“Remember what?” demanded his companion, not a little startled at his manner.
“It was right hyar that we see’d that!”
“See’d what?”
“Old Steb., you’re a thunderin’ fool!” replied Tom, with an expression of disgust. “I guess you’re gettin’ childish. I, s’pose, you don’t remember that—that—what shall I call it?—that we see’d near hyar?”
“How did I furget it? How did we all forget it—Teddy, too?”
There was no doubt that Stebbins recalled the creature to which reference had been made. Unquestionably brave as both of these men were, their appearance showed that they were frightened. Their bronzed and scarred faces were pale, and they looked into each other’s eyes in silence, both revolving “terrible thoughts.”
“Right out thar,” said Stebbins, speaking in a terrified whisper, and pointing toward the open prairie, over which they had just ridden; “how was it that we wa’n’t on the look out fur it?”
“Dunno, when we’ve been talkin’ ’bout it all the way. It’s too bad that it should come right hyar—jest near the very spot we’re after.”
“Mebbe it’s gone away,” added Stebbins, speaking not his belief, but his hope.
“It will be a powerful lucky thing for us, if it has.”
As frightened children huddle close together, around the evening fire, at the thought of the dreadful ghost, so these two stern-featured men, whose faces had never blanched when the howls of the myriad red-skins, who were closing around them, sounded in their ears, now instinctively sat closer together, and looked off furtively in the darkness, as if in mortal dread of some coming and appalling monster.
But this sudden exhibition of fear was mostly temporary in its manifestations. As each clutched his trusty rifle, and recalled the terrible weapon of which he was master, their confidence almost, but not entirely, returned.
“If that thing does come,” finally spoke old Stebbins, in his deliberate but emphatic manner, “and I can get the chance, I’m going to put a rifle-ball into it, smash and clean.”
“S’posen it doesn’t hurt it.”
“That’s onpossible.”
“Dunno,” persisted Black Tom, “from what we’ve hearn of it, they say it don’t mind our guns.”
“Ef it can stand a shot from my gun, then thar ain’t no use in talking,” was the response of the old hunter.
“Don’t you mind what Stumpy Sam told us about it?” asked Stebbins, some minutes afterward.
“I didn’t hear what he told you; you see’d him first.”
“It was two years ago, come the middle of trappin’ season, when Sam said he and three other fellers see’d him. It warn’t a great ways from hyar, and they war riding up one side of a ridge, when jist as they reached the top they met the thing, coming up t’other side. They had a good sight of it, and the whole four fired right into it.”
“Wal?”
“It give a sort of a snuff, turned tail toward ’em, and walked away, as though they hadn’t done nothin’ more nor sneeze at it.”
“That’s Sam’s story,” replied Tom. “I allers b’l’eved he told a thunderin’ lie about it, ’cause why, thar ain’t no animile that could stand four rifle-bullets right into his face.”
“That’s what I say,” assented Stebbins. “Sam and the rest of them fellers must have been so scared, (though it wouldn’t do to tell ’em so,) that they didn’t hit the critter at all, and that’s what makes me kinder want to draw bead on it, and see what it’ll do afterward.”
“But I say, Steb., now s’pose you do get a crack at it, and it don’t make no difference at all; what then?”
“Why,” fairly whispered the old hunter, in his shuddering earnestness, “then I’ll know it’s a spook!”
That was a dreaded word, for it touched the tender point in a brave but ignorant man’s character. Strong in the face of real, tangible danger, they were like children before a peril which they could not comprehend.
Both of these hunters had sent their ounce of lead crashing through the heart-strings of the buffalo and grizzly bear, a hundred yards distant, and they were warranted in believing that no living creature could face such “music” and live.
What, then, were they to think of any thing that could bid defiance to their weapons? Was it not natural that they should look upon it as something outside of the world in which they lived—something to be dreaded, as the possessor in itself of a power above and beyond theirs?
They had heard strange stories of a wonderful beast seen by different hunters and trappers, who had visited this portion of the Black Hills. Common report had placed it somewhat further to the north-west, so that when the year before they had caught a glimpse of it, in sight of the very grove where they were then encamped, they had double cause for amazement.
They had placed these marvelous stories and rumors which reached their ears in the same category, that listeners doubtless often placed theirs, and believed they originated from an encounter with some mis-shapen, malformed brute, that was no more to be feared than the ordinary creatures to be looked for in these wilds, at any time and by any one.
But there came a time when they were most completely undeceived. The preceding spring,
