Beadle's Dime Library, No. 13 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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- ordinary feeling, 16 The New York Library. | the patient every day, by mighty! Boy, put on another stick o” Ba a ig AR tittle closter to your brile; a brile has to be looked arter.” “How did this treatment affect him?” asked Pathaway, with a half-smile. “ Powerful! powerful! ‘Long toward the last on’t I tied his well leg to the bed-post for fear the wrong one would come up. But not’- stannin’ all the skill I laid out on the onnater- alized furriner, the lame limb didn’t come up; but he fell away like p’ison durin’ the time.” Nick gave the stew-pan an extra shake, glanced Seapenly at Pathaway, then added, reflectively : “ But it oughter done his business! "wasn’t no fault o’ mine; I gin him enough o’ the condemned stuff. There! that sparrow-legged boy has dropped his meat in the ashes! ‘The doctor was summat astonished when he got home, for he didn’t spect to be gone but a week when he went away. There was a litile pucker, as ’twere, round the corners of his mouth when I told him what I’d done; but he lighted his pipe and smoked right on, as usual. “*]T think I’m well qualified to practise doctor-stuff,’ sez I. “*T think you be,’ sez he, ‘ but there’s one iece ov’ information I want to give ye ; whieh 18, that all diseases is brung about by humors. No matter what a person complains on, de- pend on’t ’tis humors.’ “¢]’m everlastin’ly obleeged to ye,’ sez I, and the very next day left the doctor's In. farmity, snatisfied @iat it wouldn’t be safe for me to j’arn any more. Give me good food, good air, and good exercise, and I don’t eare or physic, by gracious! The human stomich never was intended for a slop-bowl.” wm | impressed with this idea, the trapper pon ered a moment, and finished his train of thought y saying, with more than “Oh Lord, no!” The gray hunter seemed not to notice Nick's closing remarks; his eyes wandered with the same perplexed and half-painful inquisitiveness from him to the youth, and from the youth to him; but they dwelt longest upon the youth. CHAPTER XIII. THE FORLORN TRAPPER. Nick’s little camp was like a grain of sand in the wilderness—the ranges stretched so far ; the prairies were so wide; the rivers and lakes so many ; the borders of civilization so distant. The sun went down upon the soli- tary hut as if loth to lose sight of it and trust it alone in the durkness, ite rays lingering tremulously upon the isolated threshold. Portneuf. was gaining strength and spirit under the ministrations of the trapper and Se- bastian. He was beginning to relate his adven- tures with the outlaws of Tapper Trrace, when the dogs sprang up and barked, and the griz- zly bear appeared at the door. His coming was so unexpected that all save Nick were startled. “Don't be skeerd!” said the trapper. “’Tis the Shoshonie’s tame bear; got away from him, Tallow. Guess I'll drive the critter home. Go ’long there, you varmint !” Nicholas uttered these words hurriedly and with uncommon trepidation, for him—anxious, apparently, that the animal should not attract particular attention. Seizing the first conve- nient fagot, he ran from the camp, the bear retreating, growling before him. Very soon man and bear were out of sight and hearing. Nick was gone but a short time, returning somewhat cloudy and meditative, but perceiv- ing that both Pathaway and Sebastian were watching him, he assumed to be very cheerful. It was no hard matter to see that he was tak- pr ag precautions concerning the safety of his horse, calling him in from his grazing unds and fastening him close to the door, While he was performing the last-named oper- ation, Sebastian stole tc his side and whis “ | know there is er at hand, Nicholas !” “Bless you, no! There isn’t an artom 0’ diffikilty, and not that, neither, for it’s a world o’ diffikilties, and there allers will be more nor ‘ess on ’’em, specially more’; and that isn’t much arter all: I could tell ye tales o’ diflikilties, my pooty boy, that would last from now till to-morrer mornin” thout repeatin’ nary one. Always bearone thing in mind,” he added, more earnestly, “that whatever the diffikilty is, there’s one near ye that won’t be afeard to meet it.” ‘“‘1’m so certain of it! I’m so certain of it!” responded Sebastian, warmly. Then, hesitat- ingly, and depressing his voice: “ But this man Pathaway. I hope you will—” * Jes’ so! jes’ so!” returned Nick, thought- fully. “ITI care for bim as though he’s my aatril son; though he’s one the sort that don’t need much takin’ care on. You see him take eare of hisself not long ago, in a way, too, that was stunnin’ to look at. But let us go in; the man we're talkin’ about has got his eyes on us now. He obsarves everything ; he watches you; it has struck me summat sing’- lar how he watches you.” “ He feels contempt, perhaps, for my weak- ness,” answered Sebastian, coloring, and ques tioning with his eyes. “It would ‘pear to be contempt, at times, hut there is moments when it r’ally seems to be an oncomfortable, parvous dubiousnesa You remind him, apperiently, of sunthin’ he san't think of. There’s trouble on the young- ster’s mind, we. ghing down his sperrits, mak- ing him look lke a clouded spring mornin’. He don’t slesp well o’ nights ; # dreams and starts and m‘atters like a murderer; and not like a murderer, neither; but more like a young feller that’s been disapp’inted in love, t’s a terrible thing, my lad, to be disapp'inted in love |” Nick stopped suddenly and fetched a sigh from the lowest depths of his chest—a half- regretful, half-sentimental sort of sigh ; such as spring up from old remembrances, partly buried, partly above ground. The youth was agitated. Nick had touched a responsive chord in his impromptu ram- blings on the borders of the unfathomable world of the emotions. He turned his back to Nick to hide his perturbation. The trap- er shook his head as if he had his thoughts, ut would not speak them. “ Mountaineer,” said Sebastian, presently, with affected cheerfulness, “were you ever ‘disappointed in love’ ?” Nicholas was walking toward the eamp when this question was proposed, but it arrested him as suddenly as if a Mexican lasso had been thrown over his head. “ Disapp’inted, lad, ory eae oe We're all more nor less disapp’inted. Yes !”—with a long inspiration—‘ yes, I might say I’ve been disapp’inted. There is times when a vision o’ curls, bright eyes, a light figger, and a pooty mouth, comes over me with malan- choly airnestness. But we won't speak on’t now. When there’s opportunity, I'll tell ye a story, prehaps; and prehaps I won’t, nei- ther ; for what’s the good o’ mopin’ and fret- tin’ over what’s past and gone? My way is to laugh at old diffikilties, and brace up to meet the new.”’ Nick and Sebastian had scarcely entered the camp, when the dogs signified by their conduct that some one approached. Mck stepped out and met a man at the door, whe came in at his invitation. The personnel of this visitor was not en- aging. He had a run-down, beggarish, not- Soina-vell look, which, while it did not great- ly appeal to the sympathies of the parties, in no way added to his welcome. Several rusty traps were tm, pen his back. His arms consisted of an eld fowling piece, with a frac- tured stock tied up with strips of undressed skin, and a hunting-knife with a saw-edged and battered blade. His garments served to cover him, whieh was all that could be said of them ; in fact, they hung around him in be- smutched and unsightly tatters. His face, hands, and neck, were superfluously dirty ; while his hair was in a state of studied disor- fer, as if stuck up and matted to meet the demands of some new backwoods fashion, which outstripping all others, hal 7cne on te the extreme of wildness. There was not that thinness and squalor of the face which ought fittingly to have accompanied the setting of this free-trapper gem. Despite his outside shabbiness, he had, clearly, been well fed. Immediately upon his introduction, he took a leisure survey of the parties within; then laying aside his gun, oak throwing down his traps, greeted the parties with : “ How are ye, critters ?” “ Well’s common, thank’e. Hope you left your folks well?” answered Nick, ungra- clously. “Ha’n’t seen no folks lately, cept Ingins. Been starvin’ and hidin’ on the Saskatchewan ack near the extreme tip o’ the South ranch. Had an awful time with the Black- feet. Glad to see white critters ag’. Im ruther run down in p’int o’ clothes, but I don’t s’pove it’ll make no odds ’mong Christians.” It was visible from the manner of the hunter that he was not pleased with this new- comor. He observed that Sebastian watched him eontinually, and started at the first sound of his voice, as persons sometimes start at sight of a serpent. ‘“ How unfitted,” he thought, ‘is this lad for the life he is leading! He has no nerve ; his sensibilities «we shocked by the slightest cireumstance ; he is weaker than a love-tick girl. And yet—and yet,” mused Pathaway, “his wild beauty fascinates me in spite of myself. If I feel a passing emotion of contempt, it yields to something strange and inexplicable that renders me melancholy and foliovs me in haunting dreams.” “ \What’s your name ?” inquired Nick, meres: “ Hendricks, ’mong civilized critters,” re- pied the person questioned, glancing st Port- neuf. “How happened ye to stumble on my camp ?” continued Nicholas, in the same tone. “ Queer question to ask, brother, when you know that a hungry free trapper can smell a piece o’ meat a dozen miles. Don’t begrudge a fellor bein’ somethin’ to eat and a fire to warm him by, do ye?” Hendricks, turning his eyes slowly from Portneuf, met the fixed looks of Sebastian. A shange came over him at once ; his under jaw fell, his mouth remained open in a mingled expression of wonder, curiosity, and something else that might have been construed into fear. This passed quickly away, but Hendricks had seen ox apprehended that which he could not forget. Had his swarthy features been freed from dirt and tan, they would have been found paler than Andrew Jeanjean’s. Nick, who was busy with the fire, heaping the brands together and feeding it with sticks, did not notice the sudden perturbation of his visitor; but with Pathaway, who was unoc- cupied, it did not pass without observation ; yet it was a thing to whieh he had no clue to guide hira to its meaning. “T don’t begrudge nobody nothin’,” quoth Nick. ‘Them as comes to my camp hung and tired shall be fed and rested, if I've oi the means of doin’ it. An honest, unlucky trapper never went away from my lodge dis satisfied.” “Tm sich a one as you describe, but I can't say my weleome has been o’ the warmest,” replied Hendricks, with less confidence than before. “T dunno, I dunno!” responded Nicholas, doubtingly. “I ain’t your jedge, and I’m glad on’t, for I might jedge ye too hard. But you haven’t got that open, straight forrard ook that I like, I swear to gracious!” Hendricks started up in a huff, scowling in an unfriendly manner at Nick. “You want to fasten a quarrel on me, Nick Whiffles!” he said, biting his under lip. “You know me then, it ‘pears ?” returned Wicholas, quietly. “You ain’t sich a stranger in the Nor'’weet that it need to surprise ye,” answered Hen- dricks, measuring Nick from head to foot with his eyes. “It may be safe for ye,” he re patted, “to insult me here with your friends ‘round ye, but if we stood hand to hand on some lonely perarie or in a dark pass, your tongue wouldn't run on so free, I reckon. But,” he went on, picking up his traps and fowling-piece, “I'll remember this agin ye, and if you git any good on’t you'll be wel- come to it.” “You'd better eat afore ye go, for I don’t want anybody to go from my camp hungry. And,” added Nicholas, looking quizzieally at Hendrick’s rotur1 face, “ you must a been ’thout food a long time, fecgin’ by your ’pear- ance. You've lost a 0 o’ flesh, that’s pie and I shouldn’t wonder if you'd been stin’ more nor a week. Nick’s irony was not without its effect upon its object. At one moment he seemed ready to push matters to an unpleasant crisis, while at the next other emotions agitated him. When he looked at Nick, he was manifest disposed to quarrel with him; but when his regards strayed to Sebastian, which they did furtively and often, his belligerent feelings were diverted to a different cae Master- ing whatever impulses rebe against the ioveuet he shew doe his traps, replaced his gun and said, doggedly : “T see that my room is better nor my com pany, but I'll tly stay long enough to swaller a cut from yonder piece Eomicboo meat ; pervidin,* S) (E(o)