“I don’t see how you can be revenged on the horse by doing that,” said Frank. “I don’t suppose it makes much difference to him who he has for a master.”
“Who said I wanted to be revenged on the horse?” asked Archie. “I don’t; but I’ll take a terrible revenge on the robbers. Perhaps the fellow who gets this horse will try to jump him over a log, and the horse will fall down with him, as he did with me, and smash the robber’s nose, and knock his shoulder out of joint. That’s the way I’ll get even with him.”
“Three cheers for the champion rifle-shot and bear-killer!” yelled Johnny, for the twentieth time.
Again and again the ravine echoed with lusty shouts—even Archie lifted his pale face and joined in with a feeble voice—and having thus given vent to their enthusiasm, the boys pulled off their jackets and began the work of removing the grizzly’s skin.
“That will be a valuable addition to our museum at home, won’t it?” asked Archie, stretching himself out in the shade of a tree close by. “When it is stuffed and mounted, it will be worth all our other specimens put together. I’d give something to know what Dick Lewis will have to say about it. Hallo!”
The boys looked up to see what had caused this exclamation, and discovered the trapper standing at a little distance from them, closely watching their operations. They had often seen him astonished, but never before had they seen such a look of utter amazement as that which now overspread his face. He stood with his body bent forward, his neck stretched out, and his eyes almost starting from their sockets. With one hand he held his horse, and in the other his rifle, with the butt of which he was thumping the ground energetically, as if giving emphasis to some thoughts that were passing through his mind. His whole attitude and appearance indicated that he was little prepared for the scene he was witnessing.
“Hallo, Dick!” exclaimed Johnny; “we’re glad to see you. You and old Bob can just hang up your fiddles now. There’s a hunter in the settlement who is a long way ahead of both of you.”
The trapper tied his horse to a limb of the nearest tree, and walked toward the boys. “You amazin’ keerless feller!” said he, addressing himself to Frank, “I b’lieve it’s my bounden duty to take this yere ramrod out of my gun an’ give you the best kind of a wallopin’.”
“You had better be careful how you talk to him,” said Dick Thomas. “He’s the man who killed Old Davy.”
“Don’t I know all about it?” exclaimed the trapper. “Didn’t I say to myself this mornin’, when you fellers left the rancho, that somethin’ was goin’ to happen? Didn’t I saddle up my hoss an’ foller you, to keep an eye on you, an’ haint you gone an’ fit an’ killed that ar’ grizzly bar afore I could find you, to lend you a helpin’ hand? You have; an’ it beats any thing I ever heern tell on. The next thing I know you will be foolin’ around among them hoss-thieves.”