“Yes,” replied the trapper, “I knowed him several years ago, on the other side of the Cascade Range. I never met him on this side, and that ’ere puzzled me a little. You see when I picked up the little pet, it was on this side the range, and some distance further north, and it seems that here is whar I orter find the old rip.”
“His tribe is on both sides, so that mystery may not be a very deep one after all. But, how is it that he comes to be an acquaintance of yours? Do you class him as a friendly Indian?” asked Harry, naturally enough deeply interested in any matter that bore any relation to Little Rifle.
“It was rather qu’ar,” replied the grizzled old hunter, as he recalled some reminiscence. “I was going down one of the forks of Willamette River, just over the mountain. I was just then hunting bears, and didn’t understand ’em as well as I do now. One arternoon I spied a feller full as big as Old Adams’ Samson. I seen him come down to the edge of the river and start to swim across, and I put out in a canoe to head him off. I wanted to drive him back among the rocks on the side whar he was leavin’, as I had a smashin’ big trap set there, that I thought would hold him—but the critter wouldn’t turn, and when I got a little too close with my boat he just give it a slap with his paw, and away it went all to shivers, and me heels over head.
“I wa’n’t much afraid of the varmint in the water, as I knowed I could dodge him, but I was thundering mad ’cause I lost my gun, cap and one of my moccasins, and the bear wouldn’t turn back for me arter all. So I had to paddle ashore and when I got thar, with nothing but my knife, who should I see pop out from behind the rocks but a Blackfoot. He let drive his tomahawk, just to let me know he was coming, and when I dodged that he came with his knife, leaving his gun somewhar behind him.
“Wal, you can make up your mind that thar was some music about then. We had just the same weapons, and we sailed in, cutting and slashin’ each other like a couple of wild-cats. Wal, he war a little the toughest varmint I ever got hold on. We clawed awhile, and then I knocked his knife out of his hand, and dropped mine at the same time. Arter that we kept it up in Yankee Sullivan style, until we both got so tired that we couldn’t strike a blow hard enough to make a musketer wink.
“Wal, to make a long story short,” added the old fellow, with a grin, “it turned out that me and Maquesa war exactly even matched. I wasn’t a ha’r stronger than him, nor was he a ha’r stronger, and arter we laid back and rested and kept it up fur three full hours, he got upon his feet and said, ‘White man is too much fur Maquesa,’ and offered me his hand. That rather took me down, but I shook his paw, and we parted. That sorter made us friends you know, and I’ve met the old varmint three or four times since, and he always acts as though he thought a mighty heap of me.”
“I didn’t know as the Indians ever showed such chivalry as that,” said Harry; “it sounds like a romance to hear that you met as such bitter enemies, and then parted such friends.”
“I’ve run afoul of him several times, when he had a pack of warriors at his back, and could have raised my ha’r as easy as say so, but he never offered to do any thing of the kind. And now think,” continued the bear-tamer, in a voice of inexpressible disgust, “that at that time I war looking up something that could give me a clew to the little pet that I had found, and that I hadn’t ’nough sense to ax Maquesa a single word, when he could talk English purty well, and was the very man of all others that could have answered my questions. You see I found the gal on this side the mountains and met him on t’other, and so it never got through my thick skull that that all might be, and so I’ve gone on ever since without l’arning a single thing, till you come down here and told me.”
“Then your first proceeding, I suppose, will be to seek out Maquesa, in case we fail to find any trace of Little Rifle before.”
“But hang it!” exclaimed old Robsart, “whar shall I go to find him? I haven’t seen him for two, three years, and don’t know whether he’s alive or dead, or whether he’s within ten or five hundred miles, and who shall I ax? It’ll just be my luck to go tramping over Californy, Washington and Oregon for the next ten years.”