“DICK,” exclaimed Frank, as soon as he could speak, “this is the second time you have found me when lost; but I wish you had come a little sooner, for—”

“You keerless feller!” interrupted the trapper, who knew in a moment that there was something wrong, “you teetotally keerless feller! whar’s your hoss? Tell me, to onct, what’s come on him.”

“He was stolen from me,” answered Frank. “I camped last night about two miles from here, with a party of trappers, and they robbed me.”

“Did!” exclaimed Dick. “Bar and buffaler! who war they? They warn’t no trappers, I can tell ye, if they done that ar’ mean trick. Tell me all about it to onct.”

Frank then proceeded to relate all that had transpired at the camp; told how closely the men had questioned him concerning the intended movements of old Bob; repeated all the threats which the outlaw had made, and concluded his narrative with saying:

“He told me that when I saw old Bob again, I could say to him, that the next time he wanted to catch Black Bill, he—”

“Black Bill!” almost yelled the trapper. “Black Bill! That ar’ tells the hul story. The scoundrel had better steer cl’ar of me an’ old Bob, ’cause I’m Bob’s chum now, an’ any harm that’s done to him is done to me too. I can tell you, you keerless feller, you oughter be mighty glad that you aint rubbed out altogether.”

“I begin to think so too,” replied Frank; “but, Dick, I want my horse.”

“Wal, then, you’ll have to wait till he comes to you, or till them ar’ fellers git ready to fetch him back. ’Taint no ’arthly use to foller ’em, ’cause they’ll be sartin to put a good stretch of country atween them an’ ole Bob afore they stop. Your hoss ar’ teetotally gone, youngster—that’s as true as gospel. I tell you ag’in, ’taint every one that Black Bill let’s off so easy. Climb up behind me, an’ let’s travel back to the ole bar’s hole.”

Frank handed his rifle to his companion, mounted Sleepy Sam, and the trappers drove toward the camp, slowly and thoughtfully. For nearly an hour they rode along without speaking to each other. Dick, occasionally shaking his head and muttering “Bar an’ buffaler—you keerless feller.” But at length he straitened up in the saddle, and holding his heavy rifle at arm’s length, exclaimed:

“Youngster, I don’t own much of this world’s plunder, an’ what’s more, I never expect to. But what little I have got is of use to me, an’ without it I should soon starve. But I’d give it all up sooner nor sleep in a camp with Black Bill an’ his band of rascals. I’d fight ’em now if I should meet ’em, an’ be glad of the chance; but thar’s a heap of difference atween goin’ under, in a fair skrimmage, an’ bein’ rubbed out while you ar’ asleep. Durin’ the forty year I’ve been knocked about, I’ve faced a’most every kind of danger from wild Injuns an’ varmints, an’ I never onct flinched—till I rid on them steam railroads—but, youngster, I wouldn’t do what you done last night fur nothin’. Howsomever, the danger’s all over now, an’ you have come out with a hul skin; so tell me what you done while you war lost.”

The manner in which the trapper spoke of the danger through which he had passed, frightened Frank exceedingly. He knew that Dick was as brave as a man could possibly be, and the thought that he had unconsciously exposed himself to peril that the reckless trapper would shrink from encountering, occasioned feelings of terror, which could not be quieted even by the knowledge that he had passed the ordeal with safety; and when, in compliance with the guide’s request, he proceeded to relate his adventures, it was with a trembling voice, that could not fail to attract the trapper’s attention.

“I don’t wonder you’re skeered,” said he, as Frank finished his story. “It would skeer a’most any body. But it’s over, now, an’ it aint no ways likely you’ll ever meet ’em ag’in. Me an’ ole Bob will see ’em some day, an’ when we settle with ’em, we will be sartin to take out pay fur that hoss. When we git to camp Bob’ll tell you how he happens to owe Black Bill a settlement. When we seed you goin’ off in that ar’ way,” continued the trapper, turning around in his saddle so as to face Frank, “we didn’t feel no ways skeery ’bout your comin’ back all right, if you got away from the buffalers. Your uncle said, ‘In course the boy has got sense enough to see that the mountains now ar’ on his right hand, an’ to know that when he wants to come back, he must keep them on his left hand;’ an’ jest afore he went to sleep, I heered him say to ole Bob, ‘I wonder how Frank is gettin’ on without his blanket.’ Your little cousin said, ‘I hope he’ll fetch back my rifle, an’ my possible-sack, an’ the things what’s in it, all right, ’cause I should hate to lose them Injun’s top-knots.’ I guess he won’t laugh none, when he finds out that all them stone arrer-heads, an’ spear-heads, an’ other fixin’s ar’ gone. Ole Bob, he knowed, too, that you would turn up all right if you could keep on your hoss till he stopped. But, bar and buffaler! we didn’t think you war goin’ to camp with that varlet, Black Bill. If we had, thar wouldn’t have been much sleepin’ done in our camp last night.”

Having thus assured Frank that his friends had entertained no fears of his ability to find his way back to the wagon, the trapper again alluded to the subject of the robbery, obliging his young companion to relate the particulars over and over again, each time expressing his astonishment and indignation in no very measured terms. In this way they passed the fifteen miles that lay between them and the camp, and finally arrived within sight of the “ole bar’s hole.”

Mr. Winters, Archie, and Bob were seated on the ground near the wagon, but when they discovered the trapper riding toward them with Frank mounted behind him, they rose to their feet in surprise, and Archie inquired, as he grasped his cousin’s hand—

“Did your horse run himself to death?”

Before Frank could answer, Dick sprang from the saddle, exclaiming:

“Bob! Black Bill’s on the prairy.”

“Black Bill on the prairy!” repeated the old man, slowly, regarding his friend as if he was hardly prepared to believe what he had heard.

“Yes, he ar’ on this yere very prairy,” replied Dick; “an’, Bob,” he continued, stretching his brawny arms to their fullest extent in front of him, and clenching his huge fists, “an’, Bob, that ar’ keerless feller actooally camped with him an’ his rascally chums, last night. Yes, sir, staid in their camp an’ slept thar, an’ this mornin’ they said as how he war a spy of your’n, sent to ketch ’em; so they stole his hoss.”

Old Bob was so astonished at this intelligence, that he almost leaped from the ground; while Dick, without allowing the excited listeners an opportunity to ask a question, seated himself beside Mr. Winters and proceeded to give a full account of all that had transpired at Black Bill’s camp; during which, Archie, surprised and indignant at the treatment his cousin had received, learned that he also had been a heavy loser by the operation. All his beloved relics were gone. But they still had miles of Indian country to traverse, and these could be replaced; while Frank, in being robbed of his horse had sustained a loss that could not be made good. Archie was generous; and, declaring that he had ridden on horseback until he was actually tired of it, told his cousin to consider Sleepy Sam as his own property, an offer which the latter emphatically refused to accept.

“Never mind, youngster,” said old Bob, who had listened to all that had passed between the cousins, “never mind. You shan’t lose nothin’ by bein’ robbed by that varlet. Me an’ Dick will put you on hossback ag’in afore you’re two days older. But this yere shows you that you oughtn’t to make friends with every feller you meet on the prairy, no more’n you would in a big city. Now if you war lost in the settlements, and didn’t know whar to go to find your hum, you would think twice afore you would camp with a teetotal stranger, an’ a feller oughter do the same thing on the prairy. I larnt that long ago, an’ through that same feller, Black Bill. Years ago, when Dick’s old man war alive, it warn’t so. If a feller got a leetle out of his reckonin’, an’ walked into a stranger’s camp, he could roll himself up in his blanket an’ sleep as safe an’ sound as he could any whar, an’ neither man warn’t afraid that the other would rub him out afore daylight. But it aint so now. Them fellers in the settlements got to doin’ meanness, an’ run here to git cl’ar of the laws. But they found thar war law here too; an’ when they done any of their badness, an’ we got our hands on ’em, we made short work with ’em. But they kept comin’ in fast, and when three or four of ’em got together, they would take to the mountains, an’ thar warn’t no use tryin’ to ketch ’em. When we seed how things war agoin’, a lot of us ole trappers, that had knowed each other fur years, made up a comp’ny. We had to do it to defend ourselves ag’in them varlets, fur it soon got so it warn’t healthy fur a lone man on the prairy, if he had any plunder wuth baggin’. We stuck together till that Saskatchewan scrape, an’ now me an’ Dick ar’ the only ones left. I don’t say that we’re the only honest trappers agoin’, ’cause that aint so. Thar ar’ plenty of good ones left; but we ar’ the last of our comp’ny, an’, somehow, we don’t keer ’bout trappin’ with strangers.

“Wal, one spring we went to the fort to trade off the spelter we had ketched durin’ the winter, an’ the trader we sold ’em to, war makin’ up a comp’ny to go to the head waters of the Missouri. He war goin’ with his expedition, an’ he wanted us to go too. He offered us good pay; he would find us we’pons, hosses, traps, and provender fur nothin’, an’ buy our furs to boot. He done this ’cause thar war a good many traders workin’ ag’in him, an’ he wanted to be sartin of gittin’ all the furs we trapped. We had a leetle talk among ourselves about it, an’, finally, told him that it war a bargain, an’ that we would go. So he writ down our names, an’ we tuk up our quarters in the fort till the day come to start. The trader’s name war Forbes, an’ as he war our boss, we used to call him Cap’n Forbes. He warn’t jest the kind of a man a feller would take to be a trader—he smelt too much of the settlements—an’ even at the fort, among rough trappers an’ soldiers, he would spruce up an’ strut like a turkey. ’Sides, he had a nigger to wait on him an’ take keer of his hoss. As I war sayin’, we noticed all these things, but we didn’t keer fur ’em, fur, in course, it warn’t none of our consarn; all we wanted war fur him to pay us fur the spelter we ketched, an’ we knowed he could do that, fur the fellers all said he had a big pile of gold an’ silver that he carried in his saddle-bags.

“Wal, we packed our blankets an’ we’pons down to the quarters the cap’n pointed out, an’ when we got thar, we found he had half a dozen chaps down ’sides ourselves. We knowed one or two of ’em, (an’ we didn’t know nothin’ good of ’em neither,) but the others war strangers to us. Among the strangers war Black Bill—Bosh Peters he said his name war. He war a’most as black as the cap’n’s darkey, an’ thar war a bad look in his eye that none of us didn’t like. An’ him an’ his crowd warn’t at all pleased to see us neither; fur, although they met us kind enough, asked us to help ourselves to their grub, an’ inquired ’bout our luck in trappin’, durin’ the last season, thar war somethin’ ’bout them that told us plainer nor words that they would have been much better satisfied if we had stayed away.

“It war a’most night when we went to the quarters, an’ arter we had eat our supper, we smoked our pipes, spread our blankets, an’ went to sleep. How long I slept I don’t know; but I waked up sometime durin’ the night, an’ thought I heered somebody talkin’ in a low voice. I listened, an’, sure enough, thar war two fellers jest outside of the quarters plannin’ somethin’. I heered one of ’em ask:

“‘When shall we do it?’

“‘Time enough to think of that when we git to the mountains,’ said the other.

“‘But ar’ you sartin’ he’s goin’ to take it with him?’

“‘In course! I heered him say so!’

“‘Wal, then, it’s all right. But we must be mighty keerful, ’cause our boys don’t like the looks of them last fellers that jined the comp’ny. So keep a still tongue in your head.’ They done some more plannin’ and talkin’, but I couldn’t hear what it war. Then they moved away in different directions, an’ purty quick somebody come into the quarters, easy like, an’ laid down on his blanket, but it war so dark I couldn’t see who it war. Wal, I thought the matter all over, an’ soon made up my mind that the varlets had been plannin’ an’ talkin’ ag’in the trader and his money-bags; but when I told the boys of it the next mornin’, they all laughed at me, an’ said the cap’n warn’t fool enough to tote so much money to the mountains with him when he could leave it at the fort, whar it would be safe. They told me I had better not speak of it ag’in, fur if it got to the trader’s ears, he might think I war a greeny. Wal, I war quite a youngster, that’s a fact; but it warn’t long afore it come out that I had more sense nor any of ’em.”