When they reached it Big Thompson put on his snow-shoes and turned to take leave of his companion, and this time he showed considerable feeling over it. He had not yet forgotten that the boy had saved his life.
“Now, perfessor,” said he, extending his hand, which Oscar took after some hesitation, “thar’s one thing I see about ye that I don’t seem to like fust-rate. Ye haint been trounced half enough, kase ye haint never been larnt how to mind. I told ye, t’other day, to go straight to the cabin an’ stay thar; but when I cum back I found ye camped thar under the bluff. Sich doin’s as them won’t go down with Big Thompson. Now I tell ye ag’in to draw a bee-line for the shanty; an’ that don’t mean for ye to go philanderin’ off alone by yerself in the hills. ’Taint kase I’m afeard of yer bein’ chawed up by some varmint, fur a boy who kin kill the fust grizzly he ever seed with one bullet is able to take keer on hisself. ’Taint that I’m afeard of, but it’s somehow kinder been a-runnin’ in my mind that sunthin’s goin’ to happen to ye; an’ if ye say the word I won’t budge another inch.”
“Nonsense!” laughed Oscar. “I tell you to go, and may good luck attend you. If there are any letters or papers for me at the post I want them.”
“Very good; yer the boss. But when I tell ye to keep outen them hills ye’d best do it; kase why, I’ve knowed better hunters than me an’ you ever dare be to go off alone by theirselves an’ never come back. It’s mighty easy, when the snow’s as deep as it is now, fur a feller to roll over into a gulch an’ break his leg or twist his ankle, an’ if ye done that ye’d freeze or starve without nobody to help ye. I’ve knowed sich things to happen more’n onct.”
“Don’t worry about that,” replied Oscar. “I promise you that I’ll not go out of the valley while you are gone. I will do no hunting at all until I get out of meat. Now good-by. Don’t waste an hour, for I shall be lonely without you. And I say, Thompson, don’t forget to bring that thing, whatever it is, that you use in hunting mule-deer.”
The guide turned away without making any reply. He could not trust himself to speak.
Oscar, who stood there leaning on his rifle, and watching him as he moved rapidly on his snow-shoes over the tops of the drifts, little dreamed how hard it was for the hunter to set out on his lonely tramp that morning.
He cared nothing at all for the journey, for he had often made longer and more difficult ones; but, somehow, his heart had grown very tender toward the boy of late, and he could not bear to part from him.
The guide never stopped to look back. Oscar kept his eyes fastened upon him as long as he remained in sight, and when at last he disappeared around a bend in the gorge the young hunter shouldered his rifle and turned his face toward the brook.
“He’ll certainly succeed this time,” said he to himself; “and when he comes back I shall have letters from home. In the meantime I shall learn how it seems to be alone in the hills. Thompson needn’t be at all afraid that I shall go out of the valley. I have no desire to meet Old Ephraim’s brother, and if I should happen to fall over a cliff and hurt myself I should be in a fix indeed. I never thought of that.”