“Who and what are you?” demanded Miles Morse, as the new-comer glanced around and appeared to take in the entire scene with a single look, while every eye was riveted upon him.
Well might these men gaze upon the new-comer both in admiration and surprise, for a more superb specimen of the Western hunter and border scout never trod the earth. More than six feet in height, with long black hair, and a thick beard sprinkled with gray, an aquiline nose, and eyes piercing and restless as the eagle’s, he was a man well worth remembering as a noble specimen of the class.
His dress was the usual picturesque costume, formed mostly of doeskin, curiously fringed and embroidered. His hat was the true slouch—“rough and ready,” with a gold band glittering around it. He held a long rifle in one hand, while pistols and a knife bristled defiantly in his belt. As he stood stroking the arched neck of his good horse, you saw the very beau ideal of that pioneer race who, scorning the ease and fashionable fetters of city life, have laid the foundation of new States in the unexplored regions of the giant West, and dashed onward in search of new fields of enterprise, leaving the great results to be gathered by the settlers that come slowly after him. There he stood, leaning against his horse, lithe as a panther, fearless as a poor honorable man may well be after he has, companionless, traversed the trackless desert, and fought the grizzly bear in his own fastnesses.
“Who am I, stranger?” he said, with something like a smile. “May be you have heard of Kirk Waltermyer?”
“Waltermyer? I think I have heard your name before.”
“Heard of me, stranger? Why, I am well known from the pines of Oregon to the chapparel of Texas. Ask La Moine, there, if we haven’t danced at every fandango, hunted in every thicket, and trapped on every stream.”
His companion, whom he had called La Moine, was a tough and wiry specimen of the half-breed Frenchman, so often found among the north-western hunters and voyageurs—a man of but few words, but true as steel to a friend, and implacable in his hate of an enemy.
“Yes, I have heard of you,” continued Morse. “I remember, now, and was expecting to find you somewhere in the vicinity of Salt Lake. I was told you could guide me by the best route to the Walla Walla valley.”
“I guide you!” and the weather-bronzed man laughed in a reckless and heart-whole manner. “I guide you? Why, stranger, I could do it blindfolded.”
“Well, I believe you, but we’ll talk of it another time. First, let me ask what brought you here?”