"'Well, Mister Harris, I hear you're a great trav'ler.'
"'Trav'ler, marm,' says Black Harris, 'this nigger's no trav'ler; I ar' a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh!'
"'Well, Mister Harris, trappers are great trav'lers, and you goes over a sight of ground in your perishinations, I'll be bound to say.'
"'A sight, marm, this coon's gone over, if that's the way your stick floats. * I've trapped beaver on Platte and Arkansa, and away up on Missoura and Yaller Stone; I've trapped on Columbia, on Lewis Fork, and Green River; I've trapped, marm, on Grand River and the Heely (Gila). I've fout the Blackfoot (and d------d bad Injuns they are); I've raised the hair * of more than one Apach, and made a Rapaho 'come' afore now; I've trapped in heav'n, in airth, and h----; and scalp my old head, marm, but I've seen a putrefied forest.'
* Meaning--if that's what you mean. The "stick" is tied to the beaver-trap by a string, and, floating on the water, points out its position, should a beaver have carried it away.
"'A putrefied forest, marm, as sure as my rifle's got hind-sights, and _she_ shoots center. I was out on the Black Hills, Bill Sublette knows the time--the year it rained fire--and everybody knows when that was. If thar wasn't cold doins about that time, this child wouldn't say so. The snow was about fifty foot deep, and the bufler lay dead on the ground like bees after a beein'; not whar we was tho', for thar was no bufler, and no meat, and me and my band had been livin' on our moccasins (leastwise the parflesh **) for six weeks; and poor doins that feedin' is, marm, as you'll never know. One day we crossed a canyon and over a divide, and got into a peraira, whar was green grass, and green trees, and green leaves on the trees, and birds singing in the green leaves, and this in Febrary, wagh! Our animals was like to die when they see the green grass, and we all sung out, "Hurraw for summer doins."
"'"Hyar goes for meat," says I, and I jest ups old Ginger at one of them singing-birds, and down come the crittur elegant; its darned head spinning away from the body, but never stops singing; and when I takes up the meat, I finds it stone, wagh! "Hyar's damp powder and no fire to dry it," I says, quite skeared.