Chapter Seventy One.
The Talk of the Trackers.
I spurred after, and soon overtook them. Regardless of the dust, I rode close in the rear of the trackers, and listened to what they were saying.
These “men of the mountains”—as they prided to call themselves—were peculiar in everything. While engaged in a duty, such as the present, they would scarce disclose their thoughts, even to me; much less were they communicative with the rest of my following, whom they were accustomed to regard as “greenhorns”—their favourite appellation for all men who have not made the tour of the grand prairies.
Notwithstanding that Stanfield and Black were backwoodsmen and hunters by profession, Quackenboss a splendid shot, Le Blanc a regular voyageur, and the others more or less skilled in woodcraft, all were greenhorns in the opinion of the trappers. To be otherwise a man must have starved upon a “sage-prairie”—“run” buffalo by the Yellowstone or Platte—fought “Injun,” and shot Indian—have well-nigh lost scalp or ears—spent a winter in Pierre’s Hole upon Green River—or camped amid the snows of the Rocky Mountains! Some one of all these feats must needs have been performed, ere the “greenhorn” can matriculate and take rank as a “mountain man.”
I of all my party was the only one who, in the eyes of Rube and Garey, was not a greenhorn; and even I—gentleman-amateur that I was—was hardly up either in their confidence or their “craft.” It is indeed true—with all my classic accomplishments—with my fine words, my fine horse, and fine clothes—so long as we were within the limits of prairie-land, I acknowledged these men as my superiors. They were my guides, my instructors, my masters.
Since overtaking them on the trail, I had not asked them to give any opinion. I dreaded a direct answer—for I had noticed something like a despairing look in the eyes of both.
As I followed them over the black plain, however, I thought that their faces brightened a little, and appeared once more lit up by a faint ray of hope. For that reason, I rode close upon their heels, and eagerly caught up every word that was passing between them. Rube was speaking when I first drew near.