84 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



On one of nix- trips to the mountains I happened to come across sev- 

 eral old-style hunters at the same time. Two were on their way out of the 

 woods, after having- been all winter and spring without seeing a white 



^E-rrunCtUr, 



A FRENCH-CANADIAN TRAPPER. 



face. They had been lucky, and their battered pack-saddles carried bales 

 of valuable furs — fisher, sable, otter, mink, beaver. The two men, though 

 fast friends and allies for many years, contrasted oddly. One was a short, 

 square-built, good-humored Kanuck, always laughing and talking, who 

 interlarded his conversation with a singularly original mixture of the most 

 villainous French and English profanity. His partner was an American, 

 gray-eyed, tall and straight as a young pine, with a saturnine, rather 

 haughty face, and proud bearing. He spoke very little, and then in low 

 tones, never using an oath ; but he showed now and then a most unex- 

 pected sense of dry humor. Both were images of bronzed and rugged 

 strength. Neither had the slightest touch of the bully in his nature; they 

 treated others with the respect that they also exacted for themselves. They 



