His left hand carried a long and heavy rifle, ancient and battered, worn by time and hard service. A knife with a buckhorn handle was stuck in a leather sheath in his sash, and his powder-horn and bullet-pouch hung at his side.
After watching the group of well-dressed men for a while, he stepped up to them.
“I heern tell that ye are mounting men, strangers,” he said, “though I’m durned ef ye look a bit like it.”
“You are not far wrong, my friend,” replied a heavy set man, with a jovial countenance; who seemed to be the chief personage in the group. “We are generally called mountain men, though most of us belong to the plains, rather than the mountains.”
“Ye’re all fixed up so mighty fine, that I had my doubts, and I felt kinder skeery of ye; but I allowed I mought make bold to ax about suthin’ I’m on the hunt of down hyar. Hope thar’s no harm done.”
“None to us, my friend. We are always glad to meet a mountain man in the settlements. Won’t you take something to loosen your tongue?”
“Don’t mind ef I do, cap., bein’ it’s you.”
“Thunderation!” exclaimed the mountaineer, as the effervescent champagne bubbled out into a goblet before him. “Hev ye got a b’ilin’ spring down hyar in St. Louis?”
“Drink it quick, my friend, before it dies.”
“Wal, ef I must eat it alive, hyar’s to ye!”