“Hold on there, Sam,” laughed Mr. Mackworth. “Didn’t you tell me, when we were chasin’ sheep and a loose rock would come tumbling down the mountain side: ‘look out—Old Indian Chief may be up there protecting his friends!’”
“Well,” acknowledged Sam somewhat abashed, “the Indians are always talkin’ that way. But that’s what they call all the big rams and goats, too. If that Kootenai Kooshaynix and the Sioux is the same, I reckon he’s froze stiff long ago and it’s his ghost that’s a heavin’ rocks and glacier ice and startin’ avalanches—”
“But,” interrupted Frank, all aglow with interest and excitement, “do you really believe there was such an Indian, really and truly? It’s like Mowgli in the Jungle tales!”
“Of course not,” replied Mr. Mackworth. “The tale means only this: Sheep and goats were once plentiful in all these mountains. They began to disappear. The Indians must have an explanation for everything. They imagined a cause and made it human—a man led them away. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” said Phil. “I mean I’m sorry there is no Husha the Black Earn, or Neena the White Goat. I’m sure we could find one or the other. And I always like things with a story to them.”
“Well,” laughed Lord Pelton, who was no less interested than all the others, “why not follow the practice of the Indians—if you like a story, believe it?”
“I’m goin’ to,” exclaimed Frank. “I’m goin’ to believe it and I’m goin’ to believe Koos-ha-nax is up there in the mountains, somewhere—a man of real flesh and blood.”
“And we’ll find him!” added Phil, “the man king of the Bighorns.”
“I’d rather find old Husha,” put in Captain Ludington, smiling. “We could take his horns home and I don’t know what we could do with a decrepit old Indian. However,” he added, “in the language of Italy, ‘si non e vero e bene travata.’”
“What’s that mean?” asked the boys together.