“Our secret! Ellen, have you forgot—”
“Nothing. I have not forgotten any thing I should remember. But still I say we are safe with this honest trapper.”
“Trapper! is he then a trapper? Give me your hand, father; our trades should bring us acquainted.”
“There is little call for handicrafts in this region,” returned the other, examining the athletic and active form of the youth, as he leaned carelessly and not ungracefully, on his rifle; “the art of taking the creatur’s of God, in traps and nets, is one that needs more cunning than manhood; and yet am I brought to practise it, in my age! But it would be quite as seemly, in one like you, to follow a pursuit better becoming your years and courage.”
“I! I never took even a slinking mink or a paddling musk-rat in a cage; though I admit having peppered a few of the dark-skin’d devils, when I had much better have kept my powder in the horn and the lead in its pouch. Not I, old man; nothing that crawls the earth is for my sport.”
“What then may you do for a living, friend? for little profit is to be made in these districts, if a man denies himself his lawful right in the beasts of the fields.”
“I deny myself nothing. If a bear crosses my path, he is soon the mere ghost of Bruin. The deer begin to nose me; and as for the buffaloe, I have kill’d more beef, old stranger, than the largest butcher in all Kentuck.”
“You can shoot, then!” demanded the trapper, with a glow of latent fire, glimmering about his eyes; “is your hand true, and your look quick?”
“The first is like a steel trap, and the last nimbler than a buck-shot. I wish it was hot noon, now, grand’ther; and that there was an acre or two of your white swans or of black feathered ducks going south, over our heads; you or Ellen, here, might set your heart on the finest in the flock, and my character against a horn of powder, that the bird would be hanging head downwards, in five minutes, and that too, with a single ball. I scorn a shot-gun! No man can say, he ever knew me carry one, a rod.”
“The lad has good in him! I see it plainly by his manner;” said the trapper, turning to Ellen with an encouraging air; “I will take it on myself to say, that you are not unwise in meeting him, as you do. Tell me, lad; did you ever strike a leaping buck atwixt the antlers? Hector; quiet, pup; quiet. The very name of venison quickens the blood of the cur;—did you ever take an animal in that fashion, on the long leap?”