However, on nearing them, the stranger discovered his mistake; and, throwing his rifle across the saddle once more, reined in his horse and waited their approach; for the spot where he then stood presented an excellent camping-ground, with abundance of dry wood and convenient water.
“The divide, and to the bayou for meat; and you are from there, I see. Any buffalo come in yet?”
“Heap, and seal-fat at that. What's the sign out on the plains?”
“War-party of Rapahos passed Squirrel at sundown yesterday, and nearly raised my animals. Sign, too, of more on left fork of Boiling Spring. No buffalo between this and Bijou. Do you feel like camping?”
“_Well_, we do. But whar's your companyeros?”
“Alone! Wagh! how do you get your animals along?”
“Well, that beats all! That's a smart-looking hos now; and runs some, I'm thinking.”
“Whar's them mules from? They look like Californy.”
“A heap! The soldiers in Santa Fé are half froze for leather; and moccasins fetch two dollars, easy.”
“Wagh! How's trade on Arkansa, and what's doin to the Fort?”
“Shians at Big Timber, and Bent's people trading smart. On North Fork, Jim Waters got a hundred pack right off, and Sioux making more.”
“Gone under, they say: the Diggers took his hair.”
Whilst unpacking their own animals, the two trappers could not refrain from glancing, every now and then, with no little astonishment, at the solitary stranger they had so unexpectedly encountered. If truth be told, his appearance not a little perplexed them. His hunting-frock of buckskin, shining with grease, and fringed pantaloons, over which the well-greased butcher-knife had evidently been often wiped after cutting his food, or butchering the carcass of deer and buffalo, were of genuine mountain make. His face, clean shaved, exhibited in its well-tanned and weather-beaten complexion, the effects of such natural cosmetics as sun and wind; and under the mountain hat of felt which covered his head, long uncut hair hung in Indian fashion on his shoulders. All this would have passed muster, had it not been for the most extraordinary equipment of a double-barrelled rifle; which, when it had attracted the eyes of the mountaineers, elicited no little astonishment, not to say derision. But, perhaps, nothing excited their admiration so much as the perfect docility of the stranger's animals; which, almost like dogs, obeyed his voice and call; and albeit that one, in a small sharp head and pointed ears, expanded nostrils, and eye twinkling and malicious, exhibited the personification of a “lurking devil,” yet they could not but admire the perfect ease with which even this one, in common with the rest, permitted herself to be handled.