“He’s seed the sign—and he’s keerful—hello!”
At that instant, the report of a gun was heard, sounding nearly in the direction of the Indian encampment. The trappers listened a moment, and then Tom added, in the most indifferent manner possible:
“Wonder ef that chap’s got throwed.”
“Hope not,” returned his companion, “fur ef he is we’ll have to go to bed on an empty stomach, or scratch out, and hunt up our supper for ourselves.”
The individual who had occasioned this remark was Teddy O’Doherty, a rattling, jovial Irishman, who had got lost from an emigrant train several years before, and in wandering over the prairie fell into the hands of the trappers, with whom he had consorted ever since.
He had spent enough time among the beaver-runs of the north-west, to become quite an expert hunter; he had acquired a certain degree of caution in his movements, but there still remained a great deal of the rollicking, daredevil nature, which was born in him, and he had already been engaged in several desperate scrimmages with the red-skins, and the wonder was that he had escaped death so long.
Like a true Irishman, he dearly loved a row, and undoubtedly he frequently “pitched into” a party of Indians, out of a hankering for it, when prudence told him to keep a respectable distance between him and his foes.
On this afternoon, when riding forward over the prairie, old Stebbins indicated to him the grove where they proposed spending the night, when the Irishman instantly demanded:
“And what is it yees are a-gwine to make yer sooper upon?”