“That it are!” confirmed the big hunter.
“Can it be a camp-fire?” asked Clancy.
“Very likely,” said the scout. “I think as how it’s some-’eres ’long the line of the emigrant trail. We’ll strike it purty quick—it’s jist ahead thar—and we’ve got to foller it for severil hours. We’ve got to pass that fire, and afore we get too cluss, I want to know what it means!”
“It mought be whites, an’ ag’in it mought be reds!” said Leander Maybob, riding to the front and examining the thin, vapory cloud for a moment or two. “It mought be emigrants takin’ thar grub and it moughtn’t, ye see. Prob’ly ’tis and prob’ly ’tain’t, as my uncle Peter said when Elder Tugwoller axed him if his youngest-born son war a boy or a gal!”
The others could not restrain a laugh at this; and when their merriment had subsided Darke asked:
“What do you think is best to be done, Wimple? You and Leander are learned in every department of prairie life and warfare, while Clancy and I are the merest novices. We shall trust ourselves and our enterprise in your hands.”
“I think, as it’s about grub time, you and me had better ride ahead and diskiver, if we can, whether there’s white men or Injuns or suthin’ else around that are smudge, or whether its jest a muskeeter smoke, while Low-lander, as you calls him, and the boy busies ’emselves about gittin’ suthin’ for our appetites ag’in’ our return.”
“I agree with ye thar!” said the giant, “as Elder Tugwoller remarked to my daddy when he expressed his opinion as how donations was a good institution; but my name ain’t Low-lander.”
“What’s in a name?” laughed Darke as he and the scout rode away.
“Thar’s a good deal in names, I notice,” said the big hunter, half musingly, as he swung his long left leg over his horse’s head and slipped to the ground. “I reckon thar’s a sight o’ valler in names. If ’twasn’t for folks bein’ named so’s to tell ’em apart, they’d git all mixed and twisted up so a feller couldn’t tell w’ich from t’uther or t’uther from w’ich! Now I don’t go very strong for seein’ things git all mixed and twisted up so’s ye can’t discrimernate w’ich from w’ich. If it hadn’t been fer jest sich a durn’d mixin’ and twistin’ of two different things together in my head, I’d likely now be a married man, livin’ as happy as a hornet in yer breecherloons, down to old Maybob Center in Massachusetts, the Bay State and capital of Bosting, the hub of the univarsal terry firmy. It’s an awful world we’re livin’ in,” he went on, as he tied his horse, as Clancy had already done, by means of lariats they had brought with them. “It’s an awful world! I never know’d a man to go cl’ar through it ’ithout gittin’ the wind knocked outen him somehow! It’s this mixin’ an’ twistin’ as does it all! It’s that as caused all my misery and pains and heart-longin’s, and sighin’s and so forth and so on. I know folks in gin’ral wouldn’t go for to take me for a lovyer—you, now, youngster, look more like a lovyer than I do; sorter like a despondin’ lovyer, more’n any thing. But don’t ye git down-hearted now. We’re a-goin’ to git yer sweetheart back to-day! I’ll tell you how I found out about it,” he explained, noting Clancy’s look of surprise, “I heerd ye talkin’ about her afore ye come to, fairly, yisterday. I didn’t mean ter hear yer, and didn’t go fer to pry into any of yer secrets; but I couldn’t help hearin’ ye say ev’ry few minits, ‘Vinnie!’ ‘Vinnie!’ I heerd Darke say his gal’s name was that to-day; and so I put this and that together and know’d you was her lovyer. I’ll tell you ’bout my gal an’ my love affair, and then we’ll be even. All our trouble come of this mixin’ an’ twistin’, as I told you afore. Elder Tugwoller’s niece, Sally Niver, as purty a gal as ever wore caliker—she used to live along o’ the Elder and his wife—and me got acquainted with each other to singin’ school, and afore we know’d it we was both on us purty nigh as deep into love as Lord Lovel and the Lady Nancy. The Elder didn’t ’prove of the match, and Sally an’ me uster spark on the sly. The Elder found it out and licked Sally and forbid her ever to speak to me ag’in. She cum right straight and told me, and said as how the Elder and Miss Tugwoller would be away Saturday night over to the widder Mork’s and wanted me to come down an’ see her while they was gone. I rigged up and went down; and jest as I got inside the yard I see Sally cummin, down the path to meet me, and the tears was a-streamin’ down her face. ‘They ain’t gone, deary!’ sez she, ‘and if they see you we’ll be in an awful pickle!’ I couldn’t go away without inquirin’ what was the matter. ‘Oh!’ sez she, ‘I’ve had to take—uncle’s bin a-givin’ me—’ ‘Another lickin’ I’ll be bound!’ sez I. ‘Sally, yer mine, afore Heaven, and I’m a-goin’ to trounce that old cuss within an inch of his life for abusin’ ye so, if he is the preacher!’ ‘Oh dear!’ sez she. ‘You don’t understand he—oh, what’ll you do? Thar he comes now!’ And sure enough, I looked up and thar come the Elder down the path a-makin’ motions and a-swingin’ a big hosswhip. I thought he was a-goin’ to lick Sally ag’in, and she screamed and I jumped afore her. Jest then the hosswhip cracked round my legs. ‘Young man,’ sez the Elder, ‘you’ve got things kinder mixed and twisted up, like, in your mind. Your mind’s considerably mixed and twisted. You don’t understand as how I don’t want ye here at all, and you’ve got mixed and twisted up about the lickin’, like. I hain’t bin a-givin’ my niece a cowhidin’; I jest give her a dose of peppersass for a cold, and that’s what brings the water outen her eyes. I’m goin’ to give the cowhidin’ to you!’ And he axed the blessin’ and commenced. The gad played kinder lively for a minit, then I jerked it outen his hand and throw’d it over into the garden, and sez I, ‘Elder, if you think I’m goin’ to stand sich you must be kinder mixed and twisted up, like, in your idees!’ Then I knocked him down and kissed Sally good-by and walked away. I hain’t never seen her since. The Elder sent her away to school and I come West—and that’s the end on’t all. I s’pose she’s married long ago!” he finished, sadly. “She was jest the sort of gal as ketches men! It was all owin’ to my mixed and twisted state of mind concernin’ the lickin’ and the peppersass!”