“Do sit down beside me, Dick, and tell me about this Wild Man,” said March earnestly. “You can’t fancy how anxious I am to see him. I’ve come here for that very purpose. No doubt I’ve come to shoot and trap, too, but chiefly to see the Wild Man o’ the West. An’ isn’t it provokin’? I might have seen him some weeks agone, if I hadn’t bin stunned with a fall jist as he came jumpin’ into the middle o’ us like a clap o’ thunder—”
“What, lad,” interrupted Dick, “was it you that I—”
Just at this moment Dick was seized with a very violent fit of coughing, which, coming as it did from such a capacious chest and so powerful a pair of lungs, caused the roof of the cavern to reverberate with what might have been mistaken, outside, for a species of miniature artillery.
“You’ve caught cold,” suggested March, who gazed in unspeakable admiration at the magnificent locks and beard of this remarkable man, as they shook with the violence of his exertion.
“I never had a cold,” replied Dick, becoming quiet again; “there’s other things as cause a man for to cough, now and agin’, besides colds.”
“True,” rejoined March; “but you were sayin’ somethin’—do you know of the fight I was speakin’ of?”
“Know of it—ay, that do I.”
“Why, how did you happen to hear of it?”
“It’s wonderful, lad, how I comes to know about things in this part o’ the country. I know everything the Wild Man does. He can’t move without my bein’ on his track d’rectly. In fact, I follers him like his shadow—leastwise, his shadow follers me.”
“Indeed,” exclaimed March, whose interest in Dick became suddenly tenfold more deep on learning this. “But why do you follow him about in this fashion? Does he like your company, or do you only follow him on the sly, and keep out of sight? Explain yourself, Dick—you puzzle me.”