“Never you mind, boys,” he would tell the soldiers, “if de Injines does gobble us, an’ lift our ha’r, as Gummery says, I can make it grow ag’in—hi yah-yah! I jist kin!”
Whereupon he would exhibit a small bottle in a mysterious manner, adding, “Dar’s de stuff dat can do it—you bet!” And then he would consign it to his pocket again.
This assurance afforded much amusement to the “high privates” of the party, who made a standing joke of the Professor’s Hair Restorative—for Isaac Yardell had prefixed the word “Professor” to his name when he was a tonsorial artist in Chicago, before the spirit of adventure had seized upon him and led him after gold among the mountains of Montana.
Gummery Glyndon had brought in an antelope. Some of the soldiers had captured a few fish from the river, a fire had been built in the center of the camp, and preparations were going on briskly for the evening meal.
In this Isaac had four assistants, he having contrived to transfer the drudgery of his office, with true Ethiopian cunning, to others. A colored servitor will always shirk all the work he can. Thus two of the soldiers, a German named Jacob Spatz—Dutch Jake, was his camp name—and one Irishman, Cornelius Donohoe—Corney for short—were always available for services at meal-time, and the two boys—the Percys—collected the wood for the firing. By this arrangement Isaac had little to do but the cooking, which he performed to the entire satisfaction of the party.
Even the rough old hunter—Glyndon—a gaunt, grizzly man of fifty years of age, bestowed his meed of praise upon him.
“It don’t matter what I bring in,” he told Lieutenant Gardiner, “game, fish or fowl—antelope, mountain sheep, or b’ar meat, that Ike can just make it toothsome. These darkies take to cooking, ’pears to me, just as naturally as ducks do to water.”
Ike had only one grievance in the camp, Percy Cute was continually playing jokes upon him. Such little pranks as putting powder in his pipe, nipping at the calves of his legs and imitating a dog’s growl, and grasping his wool at night, and shouting a war-whoop in his ear, had a damaging effect upon Ike’s temper, and he vowed deadly vengeance. But his vengeance never extended beyond a chase after Percy Cute with a ladle, with the laudable intention of administering a severe spanking; but in these onslaughts the redoubtable Isaac always came to grief; for, just as he would overtake the flying youth, Cute, with a nimbleness that his sluggish look and dumpy figure never led any one to expect, would suddenly fall upon his hands and knees, and pitch his pursuer over him. But as Isaac invariably alighted upon his head, he received no injury from these involuntary dives. A shout of laughter would herald his defeat, and he would pick himself up, and return to his camp-kettle, in a crest-fallen manner, swearing to himself until every thing got blue around him, and vowing that he would “fix him de next time, suah!”
These little episodes enlivened the camp, and nobody enjoyed them better than Gummery Glyndon. The old hunter had, generally, a morose look upon his seamed and weather-beaten countenance, and his hatred of every thing in shape of an Indian was well known.
Nor was the cause of that hatred a secret. He had been the victim of one of those forest tragedies so frequently enacted upon the frontier. It was the old story which has been told so often, and will be repeated until the extermination of the red-man—which has been going on slowly but surely for years—is completed.