“If folks don’t want to git hurt they mustn’t come within reach of this yere,” continued Lish, tapping the handle of the knife he wore in his belt. “I suppose not,” said Tom, who could not help feeling the most profound contempt for his lying partner. “Now what did you steal?”
“Wal, that thar aint by no means so triflin’,” replied Lish, once more lowering his voice and glancing suspiciously about him. “I reckon mebbe we’d best move on an’ change our camp afore one of them sergeants comes down here with a squad. I seed a young leftenant down thar to the settlement, an’ I kinder thought he was arter me by the way he looked; but I had disremembered all about 319stealin’ that thar muel from Ike Barker last summer. The kurn knows it, I reckon.”
“Of course he does!” replied Tom promptly.
“Who told him?”
“My brother did. He’s just that sort.”
“What’s he got ag’in me, do you reckon?” asked Lish, who seemed to be all in the dark.
“Nothing at all. He wants to injure me, and the only way he can do it is by breaking up our expedition. He knows that I am going to make money this winter, and he doesn’t like it. He wants to keep me away from the hills, and that is the reason he is trying to have you arrested.”
“I wish I could bring the sights on my rifle an’ the tip eend of his nose in range for jest half a minute,” said the wolfer in savage tones, as he came out of the bushes and led the way down the ravine. “I’d make him think creation was comin’, sure!”
“I don’t want you to shoot at him,” said Tom, who need not have had any fear on this score. “I only want you to help me serve him as he is trying to serve me. He is getting on in the world altogether too fast.”
320“Wharabouts in the hills is him an’ Big Thompson goin’?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“We must watch ’em an’ find out. If we see that they are strikin’ for our grounds we must shoot their critters an’ stop ’em. Thar aint room enough in our valley fur me an’ Big Thompson.”
“You don’t like that man, do you? What has he done to you?”
The two worthies had by this time reached the place where Lish had left his horse. The latter did not answer Tom’s question, but threw one of his long legs over the pony’s back, and rode toward the camp, leaving his partner to follow on foot.
He did not even offer to carry Tom’s bundle, for he was too lazy to make any unnecessary exertion.
While on the way down the ravine Tom made repeated efforts to find out why it was that Lish hated Oscar’s guide so cordially, but the answers he received did not let him into the secret of the matter.
All he could learn was that Big Thompson 321had interfered too much with the wolfer’s business, and that the latter owed the guide a grudge for it.
He had never been able to have a settlement with him, but he would have it the very first time they met.
The facts of the case were that Big Thompson, in his capacity of government scout, had several times caused the wolfer to be arrested on the charge of selling arms and ammunition to hostile Indians.
While there was not the least doubt of his guilt, there was no evidence on which he could be convicted, and he had always been released, after a short confinement in the guard-house.
This, of course, made Lish very angry, and on one occasion he had tried to make matters easier for himself, and deprive the government of a faithful servant at the same time, by sending a ball after Big Thompson; but the long chase that followed, and the noise of the bullets which his determined pursuer sent whistling about his ears, satisfied him that the scout was a good man to be let alone.
He never repeated the experiment, but took 322the best of care to keep out of Big Thompson’s sight. The latter had not forgotten this little incident, and that was the reason he threatened to pull the wolfer’s hair when he met him.
As soon as Tom and his companion reached their camp, they packed up the little luggage they possessed, and struck deeper into the woods.
Two hours afterward they were snugly settled in a thicket on the side of a bluff, from which they could see the bottom of the ravine for the distance of half a mile, and thus detect the presence of anyone who might approach the bluff before they could be seen themselves.
In this camp they passed only their nights, their waking hours being given to watching the fort from the top of the hill on which the sage-brush grew. They were waiting to see what Oscar and his guide were going to do. This was a matter of no little importance to the wolfer.
Whenever Tom grew down-hearted and discouraged Lish had always tried to cheer him up by describing to him a beautiful valley among the hills, in which not only wolves, but 323game animals of all kinds were so abundant that one soon grew tired of shooting and trapping them.
It was true that there was a valley something like this a few days’ journey distant, and it was also true that Oscar’s guide knew as much about it as Lish did, and that he quite as fully appreciated the hunting and trapping to be found there.
He had led a party of sportsmen to that very place a summer or two ago, and his presence there had caused the wolfer to pack up his skins and leave with the utmost precipitation.
Lish wanted to go to that same valley this winter, and if events proved that Big Thompson was going there too, he must be stopped at all hazar............