As soon as Frank had finished his toast and coffee, he was glad to lie down again, for he was still very weak from the loss of blood. The others, after putting away the supper-dishes, replenished the fire, and stretched themselves out on their blankets.
“How do you feel now, youngster?” asked the trapper, as he drew a brand from the fire and lit his pipe.
“O! I guess I shall get along.”
“It’s a’most time for you to take some more of your medicine.”
“I don’t care about taking any more of it,” answered Frank. “It’s the meanest stuff I ever tasted.”
“It’s Injun medicine,” answered the trapper, as he sank back on his blanket, and puffed away vigorously at his pipe. “I remember,” he continued, after a few moments’ pause, “of doctorin’ up my chum, Bill Lawson, an’ that war the way me an’ him come to get acquainted. But he war used to Injun doctorin’, and didn’t growl as much as you do. I’ve heered him tell of that scrape a hundred times; an’ he used to tell it in this way:
“‘The way me an’ Dick Lewis come to get together,’ he used to say, ’war this. I war onct trappin’ among the mountains on a little stream called Muddy Creek. It war about the wust bit of Injun country in the world; but they didn’t bother me, an’ I tuk mighty good care not to meddle with their corn an’ beans, an’ for a long time I had jest the best kind of luck in trappin’. Beaver were plenty as black flies in summer, an’ the woods war chuck full o’ otter, an’ the mountains of grizzly bars an’ black-tails, so I had plenty to do.
“‘I had made my camp in the woods, about a mile back from the creek where I war trappin’, so as not to skeer away the game. Beaver is mighty skeery animals, an’ don’t like to have a feller trampin’ around them all the while; and when a man sets a trap, he musn’t go to it agin afore arly the next mornin’, for if he does, the game soon gets mighty shy, an’ the first thing the trapper knows, he’ll have to hunt somewhere else for beaver. You see I knowed all this, an’ so kept out of their way. I got along first-rate, until arly in the spring, jest as the ice begun to break up, an’ hadn’t seed nothin’ of the Injuns. But one mornin’, while I war on my way to ’tend to my traps, I seed the prints of some moccasins, where three or four fellers had crossed the creek. I knowed in a minit, from the looks of them, that they wasn’t white fellers’ tracks; so I begun to prick up my ears an’ look around me a little. I examined the trail agin, an’ I knowed there could be no mistake. The Comanches had been along there, sure. I begun beatin’ keerfully around through the bushes, for I didn’t know but that the tarnal red-skins war watchin’ me all the time; when all to onct I come acrost another trail, which war as different from the first as a muskrat is different from a grizzly. It war a white feller’s track. The tracks looked as though he had been crawlin’ along on his hands an’ knees, an’ onct in awhile I could see the place where the butt of his rifle had trailed on the ground. I knowed in a minit that the white hunter, whoever he war, had been follerin’ up the Injuns.
“‘“Wal,” thinks I, “Bill Lawson, you had better keep an eye out for them traps o’ yourn.” So I begun to draw a bee-line through the woods toward the place where I had sot one o’ my traps, keepin’ my gun ready to put a chunk of lead into the first thing in the shape of an Injun that I should see. But instead o’ goin’ up to my trap in the way I generally did, I went round so as to come up on the other side. Purty soon I begun to come near the place where the trap was sot; so I dropped down on all-fours, an’ commenced to crawl through the thick brush. I knowed I should have to be mighty keerful, for an Injun has got ears like a painter, an’ he allers keeps ’em open, too. Wal, purty soon I poked my head over a log, an’ peeked through the bushes; an’ what do you think I seed? There war my trap, with a big beaver in it, ketched fast by the hind leg; an’ right behind some big trees that stood near the trap war three Injuns, listenin’, an’ watchin’, an’ waitin’ for me to come an’ get my game.
“‘“That’s the way you painted heathen watch for a white gentleman, is it,” thinks I; “I’ll fix some o’ you.” So I drawed my knife an’ tomahawk, an’ laid them on the ground beside me, an’ then, arter examinin’ my rifle to see that it war all right, I drawed a bead on the biggest Injun, an’ fired. He rolled over, dead as a door nail, an’ the others jumped up an’ yelled like two screech owls. I didn’t stop to ax no questions; but, throwin’ away my rifle, I grabbed up my knife an’ tomahawk, an’ walked into ’em.