“Well, I don’t mind if I do,” replied the trapper, with a twinkle of his eyes.
Mahoghany Drake was blessed with that rare gift, the power to invest with interest almost any subject, no matter how trivial or commonplace, on which he chose to speak. Whether it was the charm of a musical voice, or the serious tone and manner of an earnest man, we cannot tell, but certain it is, that whenever or wherever he began to talk, men stopped to listen, and were held enchained until he had finished.
On the present occasion the trapper seated himself on a green bank that lay close to the edge of a steep precipice, and laid his rifle across his knees, while the boys sat down one on each side of him.
The view from the elevated spot on which they sat was most exquisite, embracing the entire length of the valley at the other end of which the Indian village lay, its inhabitants reduced to mere specks and its wigwams to little cones, by distance. Owing also to the height of the spot, the view of surrounding mountains was extended, so that range upon range was seen in softened perspective, while a variety of lakelets, with their connecting watercourses, which were hidden by foliage in the lower grounds, were now opened up to view. Glowing sunshine glittered on the waters and bathed the hills and valleys, deepening the near shadows and intensifying the purple and blue of those more distant.
“It often makes me wonder,” said the trapper, in a reflective tone, as if speaking rather to himself than to his companions, “why the Almighty has made the world so beautiful an’ parfect an’ allowed mankind to grow so awful bad.”
The boys did not venture to reply, but as Drake sat gazing in dreamy silence at the far-off hills, little Trevor, who recalled some of his conversations with the Rose of Oregon, ventured to say, “P’r’aps we’ll find out some day, though we don’t understand it just now.”
“True, lad, true,” returned Drake. “It would be well for us if we always looked at it in that light, instead o’ findin’ fault wi’ things as they are, for it stands to reason that the Maker of all can fall into no mistakes.”
“But what about the ornithologist?” said Tolly, who had no desire that the conversation should drift into abstruse subjects.
“Ay, ay, lad, I’m comin’ to him,” replied the trapper, with the humorous twinkle that seemed to hover always about the corners of his eyes, ready for instant development. “Well, you must know, this was the way of it—and it do make me larf yet when I think o’ the face o’ that spider-legged critter goin’ at the rate of twenty miles an hour or thereabouts wi’ that most awful-lookin’ grizzly b’ar peltin’ after him.—Hist! Look there, Tolly. A chance for your popgun.”
The trapper pointed as he spoke to a flock of wild duck that was coming straight towards the spot on which they sat. The “popgun” to which he referred was one of the smooth-bore flint-lock single-barrelled fowling-pieces which traders were in the habit of supplying to the natives at that time, and which Unaco had lent to the boy for the day, with his powder-horn and ornamented shot-pouch.