70 A GOOD IDEA. 



or some sich want at the fort. Wai, thur wur no use 

 in cryin' over him, an' so I set him up agin the cliff, 

 and fell to thinkin' how I cud manage to drag my old 

 carkidge up to the cave. 



" I wur determined to take a peep into that Injun's 

 cache, an' not even what I had jest seen cud change 

 my mind. Ef I had a rope it 'ud be easy work enuff, 

 provided I cud hitch it round somethin' up above ; but 

 then I hadn't the rope. While I wur a-spec'latin' on 

 this differculty, I noticed that the dead Injun had a first- 

 rate set o' buckskins. I wur tempted to wear 'em 

 mysell, but my own wur too good to throw off yet a 

 bit ; an' besides, I didn't cotton to the notion o' wearin' 

 a dead man's plunder. 



"I tuck the idee, hows'ever, o' makin' a lasso out 

 o' the huntin' shirt an' leggin's, an' in the whisk of a 

 prairie-dog's tail I wur cuttin' them up into strips. I 

 soon had made the very thing I wanted. But to fix it 

 wur now the rub. My rope wur nigh forty feet long, 

 an' would hang low enuff for me to climb up to, ef I 

 cud only hitch it to the cave somehow. 



" Wai, I fixed it at last this-a-way. The cave wur 

 about twenty feet higher than it wur possible to climb 

 to ; the rock got so smooth, there warn't footin' for a 

 cat. But in the mouth o' the cave itself a bit o' rock 

 stuck up like the stump o' a tree. Ef I cud lasso this, I 

 had nothin' more to do than to haul myself up like a sack 

 o' flour in a mill. I fixed a good runnin' noose at the end 

 o' the rope, an' arter a few trials I made it fast at last. 



