He was tall, clothed wholly in deerskin, and with a fur cap upon his head. His figure was one of great strength, but it was bent somewhat now with weariness. The Little Giant uttered an exclamation.
"By all that's wonderful, it's Steve Brady!" he said. "Steve Brady, the seeker after the lost beaver horde!"
The man extended a hand, clothed in a deerskin gauntlet.
"And it's you, Tom Bent, the Little Giant," he said. "I surely did not dream that when you and I met again it would be in such a place as this. Providence moves in a mysterious way its wonders to perform, and it's a good thing for us it does, or I'd have frozen or starved to death in this valley. That quotation may not be strictly correct, but I mean well."
The Little Giant seized his hand and shook it violently. It was evident that the stranger was one whom he admired and liked.
"Ef we'd knowed it wuz you callin', Steve Brady," he said, "we'd hev come sooner. But hev you found that huge beaver colony you say is somewhar in the northwestern mountings, the biggest colony the world hez ever knowed?"
"I have not, Tom Bent. 'Search and ye shall find' says the Book, and I have searched years and years, but I have never found. If I had found, you would not see me here in this valley, a frozen man with three frozen horses, and I ask you, Tom Bent, if you have ever yet discovered a particle of the gold for which you've been looking all the years since you were a boy."
"Not a speck, Steve, not a speck of it. If I had I wouldn't be here. I'd be in old St. Looey, the grandest city in the world, stoppin' in the finest room at the Planters' House, an' tilted back in a rockin' chair pickin' my teeth with a gold tooth pick, after hevin' et a dinner that cost a hull five dollars. But you come into our house, Steve, an' warm up an' eat hot food, while Young William, here, takes your hosses to the stable, an' quite a good hoss boy is young William, too."
"House! Fire! Food! Stable! What do you mean?"
"Jest what I say. These are my friends, Thomas Boyd and William Clarke, young William. Boys, this is Stephen Brady, who has been a fur hunter all his life but who hasn't been findin' much o' late. Come on, Steve."