The question was not unnatural to a man like Waltermyer, whose life had been spent in those trackless prairies and in the rocky cañons of the mountains. Since his childhood he had scarcely even seen a beautiful woman, or met with the refinement which no man appreciates more keenly than the border scout.
No one was more familiar with the squaws and dancing-girls of Toas, or the pale wrecks of civilization sometimes found in the squatters’ cabins on the Columbia; but feminine refinement had been to him a vague memory that soon became his dream. His idea of a beautiful and educated woman would have matched the inspiration with which more perfect imaginations regard the angels of heaven. He could not think of a woman so endowed without a bowing down of his iron will, in imagination, at her feet. He was bashful and timid as a little child when these fancies crossed his path. He would have considered Sampson a happy and honored man in being permitted to lay down his strength at the feet of a beautiful woman. The border man looked upon women of this class as flowers that a rude hand like his would crush even in kindness—formed of far different and more celestial material than that which composed his strong arm and symmetrical limbs.
It is a truth that your daring Western frontiersman makes a refined woman his idol—a creature to work for, fight for, and die for, if need be, without a murmur. A smile from the beloved lips is ample payment for days and nights of toil, and a word of praise is reward enough for any danger that life can bring to him. Living, as he does, amid all that is poetic and sublime in nature, his associations render him peculiarly alive to the visions that take force and form from the solitude of thought to which he is often left, weeks and months together.
Thus the man who would not shrink from a hand to front encounter with the giant bear of the rocky sierras is ready to worship the being who has realized his fancy—to guard, defend and reverence her as less powerful natures never could.
“Pooty, is she?” repeated Waltermyer, after a pause. “Waal, she’s no bird, then, to find a cage among the animiles at Salt Lake. I’d have give fifty slugs or an hundred head to have been upon the trail sooner. ’Tain’t every horse can keep up with mine, stranger; but if it was, we’d be rattlin’ onto the rocks of Devil’s Gate before the sun rose again. No, no; ’tain’t of no use. I don’t know of but one kedripid this side of the big river that can keep the lope with him for a hull day. A master horse this, stranger. More’n once he has saved my life, when the red devils were buzzin’ thick as bees onto my trail and sharpenin’ their knives to take my har. But Kirk Waltermyer had but to speak, and they thought a streak of black lightnin’ was rolling over the perarer. I’ve owned many a horse in my life, but this one is—”
“See; there is dust rising yonder,” interrupted the impatient father.
“Yes, I see!” and he sprung erect upon his steed to get a better view.
“What is it? Are the Indians coming?”
“As sure as you are here. But they ain’t coming this way. Is your guard strong enough to keep your train?”
“Against an ordinary force. But why do you ask?”