After a great deal of talk, and prolonged discussion, Bounce concluded with the assertion that “he’d give his best rifle, an’ that was his only one, to see this wild man.”
To which Marston replied—
“I’ll tell you what it is, Bounce, I will see this wild man, if it’s in the power of bones and muscles to carry me within eyeshot of him. Now, see if I don’t.”
Bounce nodded his head and looked sagacious, as he said—
“D’ye know, lad, I don’t mind if I go along with ye. It’s true, I’m not tired of them parts hereabouts—and if I wos to live till I couldn’t see, I don’t think as ever I’d git tired o’ the spot where my father larned me to shoot an’ my mother dandled me on her knee; but I’ve got a fancy to see a little more o’ the wurld—’specially the far-off parts o’ the Rocky Mountains, w’ere I’ve never bin yit; so I do b’lieve if ye wos to try an’ persuade me very hard I’d consent to go along with ye.”
“Will you, though?” cried March eagerly (again, to his cost, forgetting the rusty hinges).
“Ay, that will I, boy,” replied the hunter; “an’ now I think on it, there’s four as jolly trappers in Pine Point settlement at this here moment as ever floored a grisly or fought an Injun. They’re the real sort of metal. None o’ yer tearin’, swearin’, murderin’ chaps, as thinks the more they curse the bolder they are, an’ the more Injuns they kill the cliverer they are; but steady quiet fellers, as don’t speak much, but does a powerful quantity; boys that know a deer from a Blackfoot Injun, I guess; that goes to the mountains to trap and comes back to sell their skins, an’ w’en they’ve sold ’em, goes right off agin, an’ niver drinks.”
“I know who you mean, I think; at least I know one of them,” observed March.
“No ye don’t, do ye? Who?”
“Waller, the Yankee.”