“Hello, ol’ timer!” he shouted cheerily.
John Hillier filled the dual rôle of trapper and road-house keeper. His fantastic dress of deerskin, the six-shooter slung at his hip, and the big sombrero that topped his shaggy grey head gave him almost a sinister appearance.
Old John’s face was savage and wild, but his bristly moustache hid a mouth as tender as a woman’s. Great shaggy brows beetling out over his grey mountaineer eyes could not conceal the softness that crept into them so often. His gentle eyes seemed out of place in that homely, battle-scarred face. It was like finding a touch of romance in a treatise on trigonometry.
He was known under several sobriquets: “Trapper” John, “Coffee” John, and “Mahogany” John. “Coffee” John for the excellence of his brew of that beverage, and of which he drank enormous quantities. His call to meals: “Come and throw your feet under the mahogany,” supplied the reason for the cognomen of “Mahogany” John.
With the assistance of their host they unsaddled the tired horses and turned them into the pasture, where they rolled luxuriously on their backs for a moment, and then started feeding hungrily on the rich clover.
A wind shook the tree-tops and turned the surface of the lake dark with ripples. High in air, streaming dark clouds scudded swiftly by.
“Got here jest in time,” said the old trapper, as he looked up at the sky. “It’s a goin’ to rain. Come inside.”
John had served as cook in a cowboy camp in Texas. He never overlooked an opportunity to make ostentatious display of his skill in the culinary art.
“Jest set my bread this mornin’,” he explained, “so I’ll hev’ ter make a bannock.”
Taking a tin pan from the shelf, he threw it the full length of the room to the table. He tossed the cooking utensils about like a practised juggler. Soon the bannock swelled to the rim of the frying-pan, the edges showing brown and crisp. He lifted the heavy dish from the stove, and with a dexterous twist of his wrist threw the bannock to the ceiling and caught it neatly in the centre of the pan as it came down. He dipped a half dozen trout in the yolk of eggs, rolled them in flour, then tossed them with apparent carelessness, but with deadly aim, one at a time, to the sizzling pan. From a shelf he took two glass jars and turned their contents into an earthenware dish on the stove. Immediately the room was filled with an aroma that caused the newcomers to sniff hungrily.