Who were these men, and what were they doing in the grounds of the North-west Company? The strife between those great monopolies, the Hudson Bay and North-west, was at this time at its hight, and Old Pegs knew who they were and what their object was in coming here.
“Thar’ll be a b’ar-fight when Dave’s boys git wind of this yer,” thought the old hunter. “It’s all fa’r, long ez they only bring whites ag’in’ whites, but when it comes ter Injuns, thet’s cutting it too fat. Oh, thunder! thar’s thet cussid Velveteens.”
It was indeed that individual, who at this moment turned so that Old Pegs had a fair view of his face. He was no longer dressed in the ragged garb which he had worn in the rescue of Rafe Norris, but in a jaunty hunting-dress with black belt and silver buckles, armed to the teeth, and looking what he really was—a desperado of the first class.
“I’d like ter pop him over,” thought Old Pegs, as he threw forward his rifle. “He sartingly desarves it. But what a wassups’ nest I’d bring about my ears ef I did shoot. Oh, you precious skunk, don’t you desarve to die?”
The fingers of the old man itched to take a shot at the man who had cheated him out of his prisoner and killed the pet bear in such a cowardly way. It made his blood boil to see him swaggering about in his gaudy dress, giving orders here and there with the air of a man in authority. At length he paused and stood with one hand grasping his rifle, the hand out of the line of his body, and stooped to speak with the Indian who was reading.
“Durn him,” growled Old Pegs, “I won’t kill him, but I’ll score his knuckles for him.”
The rifle came up slowly, for he wished to make an accurate shot. Slowly, slowly, the keen eyes looking through the double sights, until the right hand of Velveteens was fully in range.
Crack!
The rifle dropped from the hand of the desperado; he uttered a wild yell of rage and pain, and the band ran up to him in wonder to find his right hand minus the index finger, which had been cut completely away by the ball. Old Pegs had clapped his hand instantly over the muzzle of his rifle, and stopped the vent, so that the smoke could not betray his presence, and without waiting to note more than that his bullet had reached the mark, plunged into the mountain defiles at the top of his speed, and, short and crooked as his legs were, that speed was something wonderful. He got over the ground at a pace which would have shamed a first-class pedestrian, taking paths which were known to but few in the mountains, over a stony way which left no trail. In the mean time, Velveteens, wild with passion, was giving vent to a series of atrocious oaths which would have disgraced a Thames barger in his most furious moods.
“Only one man in the kentry could do it,” screamed the injured man, “and that man is Old Pegs. What d’ye stand gauping at me fur, you skunks of misery? Git up thar, half a hundred of ye, and chase the old thief to his hole. I’ll give a hundred dollars to the man, white or red, that brings me his scalp.”