“Ah! there you’d be right, Bill Garey. There ain’t a critter on all the paraira as will stick a tooth into the meat o’ a reg’lar Mexikin. Coyot won’t touch it; painter won’t go near it; or buzzart, that’ll eat the durndest gurbage as ever wur throwed out o’ a tent,—even to the flesh o’ a Injun—won’t dig its bill into the karkidge o’ a yeller-belly. I’ve seed it, an’ I knows it.”
“Well,” I said, yielding to a belief in this curious theory—not propounded to me for the first time—“how do you account for this predilection, or rather dégoût, on the part of the predatory animals?”
“Digou!” replied the old trapper; “if ye mean by that ’ere a hanger agin ’em, ’taint nothin’ o’ the sort. It be the pure stink o’ the anymal as keeps ’em off. How ked they be other’ise, eatin’ nothin’ but them red peppers, an’ thur garlic, an’ thur half-rotten jirk-meat? ’Taint a bit strange, I reckin, that neyther wolf nor buzzarts’ll have anythin’ to do wi’ their karkidges. Is it, Billee?”
“No,” replied the individual thus appealed to; “not a bit, though some other sort o’ anymal ’haint been so pertikler. If their skins hain’t been touched, somebody’s been tolerable close to ’em, an’ taken thar shirts. I calclate it’s been some o’ thar own people as have jest gone up the road.”
“An’ maybe some o’ ourn as well,” rejoined the old trapper, with a significant leer upon his wrinkled features. “Some o’ them don’t appear to be much better than the Mexikins ’emselves. Look’ee there, Cap’n!”
The speaker gave a slight inclination of his head, accompanied by an equally slight wave of the hand.
I looked in the direction indicated by this double gesture; and at once comprehended the purport of his insinuation.