"What's an Injun doin' here?"
"What's an Injun doin' any place?" Bush countered with the scorn of the old-timer. "S'pose you loosen up some. You know as much about Injuns as I do."
"Well, we ain't met this Injun," said Rennie, "so he's travelin' the same way we are. Maybe he's just one of a bunch that's in here huntin'. But I was tellin' you about how old Paul Sam come to Angus' wife's place last night. He was lookin' for Blake. 'Course you heard what was said about Blake and his granddaughter. I just wondered."
Bush removed his hat and scratched his head.
"By gosh, I wonder!" he observed. "He's mighty old, but it might be. He ain't no fish-eatin' flat-face Siwash. He's a horse Injun—one of the old stock. But he is darn old."
"He thought a heap of the girl," said Rennie. "He sent her to school. He was goin' to make her all same white girl."
"Uh-huh!" Bush growled. "A lot of darn fools think they can do tricks like that. But she's a job for the Almighty. Well, if this is the old buck, he couldn't go on a better last war-trail, and I wish him a heap of luck. Now let's get goin'."
Night found them at the foot of the range they had crossed. They were now in the valley of the Klimminchuck, a fast stream of the proportions of a river, fed by tributary creeks. Across it rose mountains, range on range, nameless, cut by valleys, pockets, basins and creeks. Their area resembled a tumbled sea. It was a mountain wilderness, little known, unmapped, much as it came from the hands of the Creator.
And yet in this wilderness there were trails. Up tributary creeks hunters had made them for short distances, but they soon petered out. Beyond, into the heart of the hills, were other faintly marked routes, scarcely trails but ways of traverse, by which at various and widely separated times man had penetrated into these solitudes and even crossed them entirely.
All the men knew something of this mountain area, but Rennie's knowledge was the most extensive. His was the restlessness, the desire to see something of what lay beyond, of the pioneer. He had made long incursions, alone. Bush leaned on this knowledge. Around the fire that night, pipes alight, they held council.