“I did not think you were anyone. I took you for a grizzly bear.”
“Ha! ha! ha! He! he! he! I thort so, when I heard the click o’ your pistol. He! he! he! If ever I sets my peepers on Bill Garey agin, I’ll make that niggur larf till his guts ache. Ole Rube tuk for a grizzly! If that ain’t— Ha! ha! ha! ha! He! he! he! Ho! ho! hoo!”
And the old trapper chuckled at the conceit, as if he had just been witnessing some scene of amusement, and there was not an enemy within a hundred miles of him.
“Did you see anything of Seguin?” I asked, wishing to learn whether there was any probability that my friend still lived.
“Did I? I did; an’ a sight that wur. Did ’ee iver see a catamount riz?”
“I believe I have,” said I.
“Wal, that wur him. He wur in the shanty when it felled. So were I m’self; but I wa’n’t there long arter. I creeped out some’rs about the door; an’ jest then I seed the cap, hand to hand wi’ an Injun in a stan’-up tussle: but it didn’t last long. The cap gi’n him a sockdolloger some’rs about the ribs, an’ the niggur went under; he did.”
“But what of Seguin? Did you see him afterwards?”
“Did I see him arterwards? No; I didn’t.”
“I fear he is killed.”