IN THE OLD WEST 77 



the antelope, galloped into the plain, as if over- 

 come by the shock his modesty had received in be- 

 ing obliged to recount his own high-sounding 

 deeds. 



" Wagh ! " exclaimed old Killbuck, as he left 

 the circle, pointing his pipe-stem towards the fast- 

 fading figure of the brave, " that Injun's heart's 

 about as big as ever it will be, I'm thinking." 



With the Yutas, Killbuck and La Bonte re- 

 mained during the winter; and when the spring 

 sun had opened the icebound creeks, and melted 

 the snow on the mountains, and its genial warmth 

 had expanded the earth and permitted the roots 

 of the grass to " live " once more, and throw out 

 green and tender shoots, the two trappers bade 

 adieu to the hospitable Indians, who broke up their 

 village in order to start for the valleys of the Del 

 Norte. As they followed the trail from the 

 Bayou, at sundown, just as they thought of camp- 

 ing, they observed ahead of them a solitary horse- 

 man * riding along, followed by three mules. His 

 hunting-frock of fringed buckskin, and the rifle 

 resting across the horn of his saddle, at once pro- 

 claimed him white ; but as he saw the mountaineers 

 winding through the canon, driving before them 

 half-a-dozen horses, he judged they might possibly 

 be Indians and enemies, the more so as their dress 

 was not the usual costume of the whites. The 

 trappers, therefore, saw the stranger raise the rifle 

 * Evidently Ruxton himself. (Ed.) 



