“Ya! I’ve got a idea; a durned splendifirous idea! By the Etarnal, I kin make a good thing out o’ this. Well thought o’, Jeremiah Rooke; ye’ve hed a hard life o’t lately; but ye’ll be a fool ef ye don’t live eezier for the future, a darned greenhorn o’ a saphead! Oh, oh! ye young bloods an’ busters! I’ll make ye pay for this job in a way ye ain’t thinkin’ o’, cussed ef I don’t.
“What’s fust to be done? He musn’t lie hyar. Somebody mout kum along, an’ that ’ud spoil all. Ef ’twar only meent as a joke they mout kum to see the end o’t. I heerd shots. That must a been the finish o’ the anymal. ’Tain’t likely they’ll kum back, but they may; an’ ef so, they musn’t see this. I’ll tell them I carried the corp away and berried it. They won’t care to inquire too close ’beout it.
“An’ Dick won’t object. I won’t let him object. What good would it do him? an’ t’other ’ll do me good, a power o’ good. Keep me for the balance o’ my days. Let Dick go a gold gatherin’ his own way, I’ll go mine.
“Thar ain’t any time to lose. I must toat him to the shanty; load enough for my old limbs. But I’ll meet them a comin’, an’ Dick an’ the gurl kin help me. Now, then, my poor Pierre, you come along wi’ me.”
This strange soliloquy does not occupy much time. It is spoken sotto-voce, while the speaker is still engaged in an effort to resuscitate life; nor is he yet certain that Pierre Robideau is dead, while raising his body from the ground and bearing it out of the glade.
Staggering under the load, for the youth is of no light weight, he re-enters the trace conducting to his own domicile. The old bear-hound slinks after with a large piece of flesh between his teeth, torn from the carcase of the butchered bear.
The vultures, no longer scared by man’s presence, living or dead, drop down upon the earth, and strut boldly up to their banquet.