“My brother has much money saved from his labor.”
“Much money! Not a blamed cent, though I orter have. Shawanoe, the biggest fools—I admit it—is we trappers, who spend winters in the mountains, freezin’, starvin’ and dodging redskins, and then travel hundreds of miles to git back to St. Louis, where we can sell our peltries as quick as a wink. Then we go onto a big, glorious spree, and at the end of a week or two haven’t enough left to buy a plug of ’backer. We loaf around, doin’ ’nough odd jobs to keep us from starvin’ till the weather begins to git cold, when we’re off for the mountains agin. And so it goes year after year, and we’re fools to the end.”
“Is my brother alone in the world?”
“Lucky I haven’t any wife or children, but I’ve got the best old mother that ever drawed breath. She has a little home which she manages to hold onto by takin’ in sewin’ and doin’ little fancy things for the neighbors, who be kind to her. If they warn’t I don’t know what would become of her, for I’m no good; I don’t deserve such a mother,” added the trapper with a sigh, “for she is never as happy as when I’m with her, and she’d work her fingers off for me. ’Bout all she does is work and pray, and never an unkind word to say to her good for nothin’ son.”
“By and by she will close her eyes and go to the Great Spirit, and when my brother walks into the little home she will be gone and”——
“Thar! thar! Don’t say nothin’ more!” interrupted the trapper with a wave of his hand. “I can’t stand it. If I go back home and find her dead, as I ’spose I shall some day, I’ll die myself; if I don’t, I’ll blow my worthless brains out, for I won’t want to live.”
“My brother longs to see his mother again. If he should kill himself or do wrong he will never see her more. Let him live right and they shall dwell together forever. Let him go back to St. Louis and drink no more. Let him give the money to the mother who loves her son and has suffered much for him. Then my brother will make her face shine with happiness, and she will live much longer.”
Jack Halloway turned his head and stared at Deerfoot for a full minute without stirring or speaking. The Shawanoe kept his gaze upon the fire, but he knew the scrutiny he was under, and he “waited.” When the trapper spoke it was in a low voice, as if addressing himself:
“To think of an Injin talkin’ that way to Jack Halloway! Why, I never had a white man do it; but his words are as true as gospel. Fact is, they are gospel.”
He relapsed into a reverie which lasted so long that Deerfoot gently interposed.