“You don’t have to see him,” said
the boy. “I can tell you that he’ll
sell her. You throw in the chestnut and you won’t
have to give any boot.” And he grinned.
“But there’s the house.” He
pointed across the ravine at a little green-roofed
shack buried in the rocks. “You can come
over if you want to.”
“Is there something wrong with her?”
“Nothin’ much. Pop says she’s
the best hoss that ever run in these parts. And
he knows, I’ll tell a man!”
“Son, I’ve got to have that horse!”
“Mister,” said the boy suddenly, “I
know how you feel. Lots feel the same way.
You want her bad, but she ain’t worth her feed.
A skunk put a bur under the saddle when she was bein’
broke, and since then anybody can ride her bareback,
but nothin’ in the mountains can sit a saddle
on her.”
Andrew cast one more long, sad look at the horse.
He had never seen a horse that went so straight to
his heart, and then he straightened the chestnut up
the road and went ahead.
He had to be guided by what Uncle Jasper had often
described—a mountain whose crest was split
like the crown of a hat divided sharply by a knife,
and the twin peaks were like the ears of a mule, except
that they came together at the base. By the position
of those distant summits he knew that he was in the
ravine leading to the cabin of Hank Rainer, the trapper.
Presently the sun flashed on a white cliff, a definite
landmark by which Uncle Jasper had directed him, so
Andrew turned out of his path on the eastern side
of the gully and rode across the ravine. The slope
was steep on either side, covered with rocks, thick
with slides of loose pebbles and sand. His horse,
accustomed to a more open country, was continually
at fault. He did not like his work, and kept tossing
his ugly head and champing the bit as they went down
to the river bottom.
It was not a real river, but only an angry creek that
went fuming and crashing through the canyon with a
voice as loud as some great stream. Andrew had
to watch with care for a ford, for though the bed was
not deep the water ran like a rifle bullet over smooth
places and was torn to a white froth when it struck
projecting rocks. He found, at length, a place
where it was backed up into a shallow pool, and here
he rode across, hardly wetting the belly of the gelding.
Then up the far slope he was lost at once in a host
of trees. They cut him off from his landmark,
the white cliff, but he kept on with a feel for the
right direction, until he came to a sudden clearing,
and in the clearing was a cabin. It was apparently
just a one-room shanty with a shed leaning against
it from the rear. No doubt the shed was for the
trapper’s horse.
He had no time for further thought. In the open
door of the cabin appeared a man so huge that he had
to bend his head to look out, and Andrew’s heart
fell. It was not the slender, rawboned youth of
whom Uncle Jasper had told him, but a hulking giant.
And then he remembered that twenty years had passed
since Uncle Jasper rode that way, and in twenty years
the gaunt body might have filled out, the shock of
bright-red hair of which Jasper spoke might well have
been the original of the red flood which now covered
the face and throat of the big man.
