CHAPTER XXXV.
WHAT OSCAR’S VISITOR DID.
Lish the Wolfer had not passed many days in his new camp before he began to see very plainly that he had not bettered his prospects by coming there. For reasons we have already given, game was not as abundant as it was in that other hunting ground, and something must be done about it, or the furs he would carry back to the settlements in the spring would not sell for any great sum.
There was only one thing he could do, and that was to carry out a plan that had long ago suggested itself to him.
Lish knew that a man of Big Thompson’s active habits would not be content to pass more than half his time in camp doing nothing, but that he would devote all his spare hours to trapping. He was as successful in this line as he was in causing the arrest of those who violated the law by selling arms and ammunition to hostile Indians, and if Lish could only find out where his traps were set, and visit them occasionally while the lawful owner was absent, he might make something handsome by it.
The only objection to this plan was that there was a spice of danger in it; but this Lish hoped to avoid by the celerity and secrecy of his movements.
Having pondered the matter for almost a month, the wolfer set out for the valley from which he had so hastily retreated, intending to give it a good looking over, and to be governed in his future movements by what he saw there.
He took Tom’s last blanket from his shoulders while the latter was asleep, and left him without a stick of wood with which to replenish the fire when he awoke.
He went into camp that night on the side of the valley directly opposite to the thicket in which Oscar’s cabin stood; and, at an early hour the next morning, he had that cabin under surveillance. He saw Big Thompson and his young companion when they started for the gorge—this was the morning on which the guide began his second journey to the fort—and, as soon as they were out of sight, he ran across the valley from the willows and plunged into the woods behind the cabin.
The impulse to look into it, and see if there was anything there worth stealing, was very strong; but the fear that Big Thompson might come back and find him there was stronger, and he did not yield to that impulse.
He followed about half a mile in the rear of the two hunters, keeping them always in sight; and, when he saw them shake hands and separate at the mouth of the gorge, one going on toward the prairie, while the other—after loitering about for a while—came back into the valley, his delight knew no bounds.