The wolfer had brought Tom to the hills with him for a purpose. He intended to make him do all the drudgery of the camp, and to increase his own profits in the spring by stealing the skins the boy might find time to capture. But Tom was not long in discovering that his catch was not likely to be very large. He was expected to cook all the meals and cut all the wood for the fire.
As their larder was not very well supplied, the cooking did not amount to much, but the chopping did.
Being more accustomed to handling a pen than he was to swinging an axe, he made very slow progress with this part of his work, and by the time it was done there were but a few hours of daylight left.
Still he did manage to take a few pelts, and 330it seemed to him that he ought to have taken more, for some of his baits were always missing, and on following up the trail that led from them, he not unfrequently found the carcasses of the wolves that had eaten the baits—minus the skins.
Lish was systematically robbing him. Knowing where the boy put out his baits, he visited them early every morning, taking as many skins as he thought he could without exciting his companion’s suspicion, and then going off to hunt up his own.
“He’ll never know the difference,” Lish often said to himself, “an’ I don’t reckon it makes any odds to me if he does, fur if he opens his yawp I’ll wear a hickory out over his back. The spelter’ll all be mine some day, anyhow. I aint a-goin’ to show him the way to this nice wolf ground an’ give him grub an’ pizen fur nothin’, I bet you!”
“This is some more of my honest partner’s work,” Tom would say when he found the body of a wolf from which the skin had been removed. “It beats the world what miserable luck I do have! I can’t make a cent, either 331honestly or dishonestly. Oscar knew what he was talking about when he said that Lish intended to rob me. Why didn’t I go up to the fort to see him, as he wanted me to do, instead of making myself unhappy over his good luck? If he were only here now how quickly I’d bundle up my share of the skins and find my way to his camp!”
We have said that things always went wrong with Lish, but that is not in strict accordance with the facts.
There was one hour in every twenty-four during which he allowed his good nature to triumph over the tyrant in his disposition, and that always happened at night, provided his own catch had been tolerably fair, and he had been able to steal a few skins from Tom without being caught in the act.
On these occasions Lish entered into friendly conversation with his partner over his pipe, during which he never failed to make a good many inquiries concerning Oscar and his business, and he seemed particularly desirous of finding out just how the young taxidermist looked and acted.
332This led Tom to believe that Lish was greatly interested in his brother and his movements, and so he was; for he had not yet been able to settle down into the belief that his plan for keeping Oscar out of the hills would prove successful.
Through the influence of Big Thompson a compromise of some kind might be effected between Oscar and the ranchman, or the boy might purchase the stolen mule and wagon.
In either case he and his guide would be able to continue their journey with but little delay, and come into the valley in spite of the wolfer’s efforts to keep them away from it.
This was what Lish was afraid of, and it was one cause of his constant ill-humor.
When the snow fell and blocked the gorge he would feel safe, and not before. The wolfer knew Big Thompson, but Oscar he did not know,—he did not have time to take a very good look at him when he met him in the sage-brush,—and he wanted to learn all about him, so that he would be sure to recognize him if he chanced to encounter him in the valley. He 333had another idea in his head too; and what it was shall be told further on.
The wished-for storm came at last, and Tom was disposed to grumble sullenly when he awoke the next morning and found three inches of snow on his blanket; but Lish was as gay as a lark, and excited the suspicions of his companion by offering to help him prepare the breakfast.
All the wolfer’s fears were banished now. If Big Thompson was not in the valley already, he would not be likely to get there at all, for the gale must have filled the gorge full of snow. But Lish wanted to satisfy himself entirely on this point; so he left the camp as soon as he had eaten his bacon and cracker, and, after stealing a few skins from Tom, set out to visit the lower end of the valley.
On his way there, he struck the trail of two mule-deer, and this caused him to postpone his reconnoissance for the present. He was getting tired of bacon, and believing that a fresh steak for dinner would be more palatable, he took up the trail at once, and followed it at the top of his speed.
334About two miles further on the trail left the valley and turned toward the hills. When Lish saw this he deposited his wolf-skins in the fork of a small tree, and having thus put himself in light running order, he went ahead faster than ever.
By the time he had run himself almost out of breath he had the satisfaction of discovering, by signs which an experienced hunter can readily detect, that he was closing in upon the game.
He had already begun to look around for it, when he was startled almost out of his moccasins by the report of a rifle, which s............