“I not likes Injuns.”
“Nuther do I. I calculate ther’s a good many of jest the same opinion on the prairies. They don’t like the sculpin’ process. I know a man thet hez been sculped and is as lively as a cricket now. More’n thet, he hez put forty notches in his rifle-butt sence the Blackfeet took his sculp.”
“Vat’s dat fer?”
“He makes a notch fer every red nigger he wipes out. But I hear the dam, boys, and there’s our campin’-ground.”
CHAPTER III.
THE MOUNTAIN DEVIL.
They had hardly passed forward a dozen steps, when they were startled by a sudden cry, which resembled nothing earthly. At the same moment came the shout of a masculine voice, evidently in peril. The sounds, coming so suddenly upon their ears, startled poor Jan immensely, and he drew back with a look of horror, but Ben ran hastily forward in the direction of the sound, followed more slowly by the Frenchman. They reached a level spot of ground between the cliffs where they widened enough to leave perhaps an acre of ground inclosed, and upon this spot of ground two men were struggling for life or death. One was a young man in the garb of a mountaineer, who had fallen upon one knee and with his hand clasped about the body of his foe, was plying his knife with desperate energy.
The other was a being clad in skins, a savage, hairy, fearful creature, which could not be called a man. This ferocious creature had no weapon but a short club, with which it fought with desperate courage, warding off the strokes of the knife, and giving fearful blows in exchange. The nails of this horrible assailant were like the claws of a panther. The teeth protruded over the lower lip, white and savage. As it fought it uttered the cry which had welcomed the entrance of the trappers to the glen. A little way off, a young girl stood with clasped hands, in an agony of terror. Ben had no time to look at her then, but, drawing his rifle to his shoulder, he fired at the grizzly demon, which seemed to have the best of it, and had the satisfaction of seeing the arm which lifted the club over the head of his opponent, drop palsied at his side.
The brute uttered the same ferocious cry which had attracted their attention in the first instance, and turning, it darted up the face of the cliff near at hand, at a place where human foot had never trod. Jules fired at him, but without effect, and he passed over the cliff and disappeared from view, gnashing his teeth and howling like a wounded wolf. Ben ran to the assistance of the young man, who had sunk bleeding to the earth, and raised him in his arms. The girl came forward at the same moment, with a look of tender sympathy in her face which could not be misunderstood.
“How do you feel, Bentley?” she said. “Are you badly hurt?”
“I hope not,” replied the young man.