Little Rifle; or, The Young Fur Hunters

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Little Rifle might have continued in this reverie for hours, even after the sun had disappeared, but for the fact that his surroundings prevented. That veteran of the Oregon woods, known as Old Ruff Robsart, had not kept him under his special training for years, without accomplishing something. One of his lessons was that when a hunter was outside of his cabin, or place of retreat, he should never go to sleep; which in more intelligible language meant that ‘day-dreaming’ or reverie, of all things was to be avoided, and the true hunter or trapper never failed to keep every faculty wide awake, on the alert for insidious danger liable at any moment to leap out upon him.

The lad had cast his glance several times toward the other bank, and the result in each case appeared to be unsatisfactory. There was something there which caused him considerable speculation and misgiving.

If we had been there, it is hardly possible that we should have noticed it, but it could not escape the eye of the boy trapper, who, walking more slowly each moment, finally came to a dead halt, dropping the trap to the ground, and wheeling about so as to face the suspicious point.

The stream to which we have alluded was about two hundred yards in width. There were scarcely any trees at all growing upon the opposite side at this particular position, but there was an abundance of undergrowth and a species of long high grass peculiar to the spot.

That which had arrested the reverie of Little Rifle was not the suspicion, but the certainty that something was moving along the bank, beneath the clustering grass. What it was even he was unable to say. It had caught his eye, or rather the indications of it had, when he was a short distance further down-stream. An unnatural agitation of the grass was the sign that caused him to scrutinize it with unwonted sharpness, until, as we have already shown, he paused in his walk and faced directly about.

It would seem, even with what he had learned, that there was little cause for alarm, for there were many ways in which the appearance could be explained. In the first place, as it moved with the current, it might be that it was a log or piece of driftwood that moved tardily, on account of its proximity to shore, and the obstruction of the grass.

And then, if not an inanimate object, what more probable than that it was some beast of prey stealing along in quest of its victim?

Both of these considerations were in the mind of Little Rifle, but were rejected after a moment’s thought. His life had taught him to think quickly, and he was not long in making up his mind that there was good cause for alarm.

“Neither logs nor animals travel in that style,” he muttered, carefully following the agitated grass and undergrowth, and watching intently for the chance when some inadvertence would give him a more satisfactory glimpse of the object. “It is either a white man or Indian, with the chances altogether in favor of its being the Indian. We are too far up in the mountains for white folks to give us much trouble, and I remember that Uncle Ruff told me to be unusually careful, for he had seen signs of Blackfeet both up and down-stream, and if they have been hunting in these parts we can make up our minds that they have found our traps, and are on a hunt for us. I think that one of the Blackfeet is now in the grass yonder.”

The wish of Little Rifle was gratified. He had stood but a minute, when a mass of tall grass swayed to one side, and, at the same instant, he saw the prow of a birch canoe stealing as insidiously along as a panther approaches its prey.