“Poorly! Poorly!” said he. “Two of them had died before I returned. They waited for ten days for me to come back, and, finding that I didn’t, they sent another man to Fort Laramie for the medicine. The others were saved.
“Arter an absence of about a month I reached the post again. As I didn’t want to acknowledge that I had turned out of my way merely for the sake of a taste of some excellent cider while my comrades were suffering for the want of what I had been sent for, I said nothing about it, beyond the fact that I had been a prisoner among the Injuns and had managed to make my escape arter a hard fight.
“Some months arterwards, when a party of us were trappin’ out on th’ Medicine Bow Range, we concluded that we would make a visit to our cache. We rode long and hard to reach there. Finally we came in sight of the cave, and I recognized the place where I had had a desperate battle for my life. We entered the cavern and found it just as I had left it, with the exception that the dead Blackfeet warriors had been removed. The sack of flour and bag of rice were just as the other party had cached them, and—not greatly to my surprise—the gallant little cask of cider had disappeared. The dried venison had also vanished.”
The old trapper smiled benignly upon his listeners. “The fact is, boys,” said he, “although I had a pretty onlikely time of it with them cussed Blackfeet I felt so awful ashamed of th’ hull affair that I didn’t let on a single word about it. Th’ truth is, I wuz plum angry with myself fer gettin’ caught in that ar cave simply because I hankered after some sparkling cider.”
At this all the boys burst into loud laughter, and the old trapper retired to the fire in order to broil some antelope steaks for supper.
“Fellers, he’s the real thing,” said one. “Too bad that those good days aren’t with us now, for then, we, too, might have some adventures of our own.”
But the old times of roving Blackfeet, and desperate battles for life and for liberty, had long passed away.