“Good!” ejaculated the questioner, with a satisfied look. “We’ll fool them niggurs yit—we will!”
“Hooraw for you, old boy! you’ve hit on some plan, hain’t you?” This was Garey’s interrogatory.
“Sartintly, I hez.”
“Let’s have it then, kummarade,” said Garey, seeing that Rube had relapsed into silence; “thar ain’t much time to think o’ things—”
“Plenty o’ time, Billee! Don’t be so durned impatient, boy. Thur’s gobs o’ time. I’ll stake my ole mar agin the young fellur’s black hoss, thet we’ll be out o’ this scrape afore sun-up. Geehosophat! how thu ’ll cuss when they finds the trap empty. He, he, he!—ho, ho, hoo!”
And the old sinner continued to laugh for some seconds, as coolly and cheerfully as if no enemy was within a thousand miles of the spot.
Garey and I were chafing with impatience, but we knew that our comrade was in one of his queer moods, and it was no use attempting to push him faster than he was disposed to go.
When his chuckling fit was ended, he assumed a more serious air, and once more appeared to busy himself with the calculation of some problem. He spoke in soliloquy.
“Twenty yurds o’ Bill’s,” muttered he, “an twenty of the young fellur’s, ur forty; an myen—it ur sixteen yurds—make the hul fifty an six; ye–es, fifty-six preezactly. Then thur’s the knots to kum off o’ thet, though fornenst ’em thur’s bridles. Wagh! thur’s rope aplenty, an enough over, to string up half a score o’ them yeller-bellies, ef iver I gits holt on ’em. An won’t I! Wagh!”
During this arithmetical process, Rube, instead of gazing any longer into the barrel of his rifle, had kept his eyes wandering up and down the cliff. Before he had ceased talking, both Garey and myself had divined his plan, but we refrained from telling him so. To have anticipated the old trapper in his disclosure would have been a mortal offence.