CHAPTER XII
The black chasm which separated us from the trail of the wild hunter wasnot as formidable a barrier as the unfathomable abyss which separatesthe reader from what he thinks he would have done had he been in myplace, and what really would have been his plan of action.
There were a lot of burning questions which I had privately made up inmy mind to propound to the Wild Hunter, or the even wilder medicinebear, upon the occasion of our next meeting. But when the lad wasstanding before me, with bended bow and flashing eyes, the burningimportance of those questions did not appeal to me as forcibly as didthe urgent necessity of sheltering my body behind the friendly stone. Tobe truthful, it must be admitted that the proposed inquiries were, forthe time, entirely forgotten, and I even breathed a sigh of relief whenthe boy suddenly clambered up the face of the cliff, turned, gave us afierce look of defiance, made some quick energetic gestures with hishand and disappeared.
He scaled that precipitous rock with the rapidity and self-confidence ofa gray squirrel running up the trunk of a hickory tree, squirrel-like,taking advantage of every crack, cranny and projection that could begrasped by fingers or moccasin-covered toes.
Not until the Indian had disappeared down a dry coulee did I venturefrom the shelter of the protecting rock, or realize that my carefullyplanned interview must be indefinitely postponed.
With his arms folded across his chest, his blond hair sweeping hisshoulders, his blue eyes fixed upon a rocky rib of the mountain behindwhich the boy had disappeared, Big Pete still stood like a statue. Butgradually the statuesque pose resolved itself into a more commonplaceposture, and the muscles of the face relaxed until the familiar twinklehovered around the corners of his eyes. "What did he say when he madethose motions, Pete?"
"Waugh! he said he was not afraid of any whitefaced coyote like us." Andbringing forth his pipe, Pete filled it from the beaded tobacco pouchwhich hung on his breast, and by means of a horn of punk, a flint andsteel, he soon had the pipe aglow and was puffing away as calmly as ifnothing unusual had occurred. Presently he exclaimed, "Gol durn hisdaguerrotype, what good did it do him to throw that sheep down thegulch? Reckon Le-loo and me could find a better grave for mutton chopsthan that canyon bottom. The mountains didn't need the sheep an' we did.But, I reckon it was his own sheep you killed, 'cause it had a porcupinecollar same pattern as the trimmings of his shirt."
Turning his great blue eyes full upon me, he suddenly shot this inquiry,"Be he bar, ecutock or werwolf?"
"He is the finest adjusted, easiest running, most exquisitely balanced,highest geared bit of human machinery I ever saw," I answeredenthusiastically.
"Wall, maybe ye are right, Le-loo, an' maybe ye hain't; which iscatamount to saying, maybe it is a man and maybe it tain't."
"Steady, Pete, old fellow, let us go slow; now tell me at what you'redriving?" I pleaded.
"It looks to me this hea'-a-way," he explained. "I've seed his trailonct or twice, an' I've seed him onct, but I never yet seed his trailand the Wild Hunter's trail at the same time and place. 'Pears to methat a man who, when it's convenient, kin make a wolf of hisself, mightlikewise make a boy of hisself whenever he felt that way. Never hearedtell on enny real laid who cud climb like a squtton and shoot a bowbetter nor a Robin Hood or Injun, and that's howsomever!"
"Well, it does look 'howsomever,' and no mistake," I admitted, "and whatmakes it worse, our dinner is at the bottom of this infernal gulch.Come, let us be moving; the breeze from the snowfields chills me. Let ushit his trail now while it is fresh."
This was a simple proposition to make, but a difficult one to carry intoexecution; for to all appearances that trail began upon the other sideof the chasm, and there was no bridge in sight by which we could cross.Big Pete carefully put a cork-stopper in his pipe, extinguishing thefire without wasting the unconsumed contents; he then carefully put hisbriarwood away and began to uncoil a lariat from around his middle. Ashe loosened the braided rawhide from his waist his gaze was roaming overthe opposite rocks. Presently he fixed his attention upon a pinnaclewhich reared its cube-like form above the top of the opposite side ofthe chasm; the latter was of itself much higher than the brink uponwhich we stood. Swinging the loop around his head he sent it whistlingacross the chasm, where it settled and encircled the projecting stone,the honda striking the face of the cliff with a sullen thud. The ropetightened, but when we both threw our weight on our end of the lariat totry it, the cube-like pinnacle moved on its base.
"I oughter knowed better than to try to lasso a piece of slide rock,"said Pete in disgusted tones, as he cast the end of the braided rawhideloose and watched it for a moment dangling down the opposite side of thecanyon.
"Now, Le-loo, we must get over this hole or lose the best lariat in theRocky Mountains. We kin look for that boy's trail on this side, for evenif he be an Ecutock, I'll bet my crooker bone 'gainst a lock of his hairthat he can't jump th' hole, an' I'll wager my left ear that he's got atrail an' a bridge somewhar--'nless he turns bird and flops over thingslike this," he added, with a troubled look.
"Pete," said I, "never mind the bird business. I'll admit that there isa lot of explanation due us before we can rightly judge on the events ofthe past few weeks; still I think it may all be explained in a rationalmanner; but what if it cannot? We have but one trip to make through thisworld, and the more we see the more we will know at the end of thejourney. I am as curious as a prong-horned antelope when there is amystery, so put your nose to the ground, my good friend, and find thespot where this Mr. Werwolf, witch, or bear flies the canyon, and maybe,like the husband of 'The Witch of Fife,' we may find the 'black crookshell,' and with its aid fly out of this 'lum."
"I believe your judication is sound, Le-loo; stay where you be an' if hehain't a witch I'll bet my front tooth agin the string of his moccasinthat I'll find the bridge, and I'll swear by my grandmother's hind legthat that little imp will pay for our sheep yit."
As Pete finished these remarks there was a sudden and astonishing changein his appearance. His head fell forward, his shoulders drooped, hisback bowed and his knee bent. It was no longer the upright statuesquePete the Mountaineer, but Peter the Trailer, all of whose faculties wereconcentrated upon the ground. With a swinging gait the human bloodhoundtraveled swiftly and silently along the edge of the crevasse, notingevery bunch of moss, fragment of stone, drift of snow or bit of moistearth, reading the shorthand notes of Nature with facility which farexcelled the ability of my own stenographer to read her own notes whenthe latter are a few hours old. But a short time had elapsed before Iheard a shout, and, hurrying to the place where my big friend wasseated, I inquired, "Any luck?"
"Tha's as you may call it. Here is wha' tha' boy jumped," he replied,pointing to some marks on the stone which were imperceptible to me, "an'tha's wha' he landed," he continued, pointing to a slight ledge upon theface of the opposite cliff at least twenty feet distant. "He's a jumper,an' no mistake--guess I might as well have my front tooth pulled, furI've lost my bet," soliloquized the trailer, as he sat on the edge ofthe cliff, with his legs hanging over the frightful chasm.
The ledge indicated by Big Pete as the landing place of the phenomenaljumper might possibly have offered a foothold for a bighorn or goat, butI could not believe that any human being could jump twenty feet to acrumbling trifle of a ledge on the face of a precipice, and not onlyretain a foothold there, but run up the face of the rock like a fly on awindow-pane. Yet I could see that something had worn the ledge at thepoint indicated and when I stood a little distance away from the trail Icould plainly note a difference in color marking the course of the trailwhere it led over the flinty rocks to the jumping place.
"Wull, Le-loo! What's your opinion of the Ecutock now? Do he use wingsor ride a barleycorn broom?" asked Pete, with a triumphant smile.