THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE GOOSI 



425 



seemed to enrage here again, for insensibly 

 her ringers tightened on the bow and the 

 wood began to curve after a manner which 

 sent me ducking behind the sheltering stone 

 again. Big Pete only folded his arms across 

 his broad chest and looked the girl straight 

 in the eyes. 



Never will I forget that picture, the cold, 

 bleak, snow-covered mountains towering 

 above them, the black abyss of sheol be- 

 tween them ; neither would hesitate to take 

 life, neither possessed a fear of death; but 

 with every muscle alert and every nerve 

 alive these two wild things stood facing each 

 other, mutually observing a truce because 

 of a difference in sex. A lion and a lioness. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE LEDGE ON THE PRECIPICE 



The black chasm which separated us 

 from the trail of the beautiful wild girl was 

 not as formidable a barrier as the unfathom- 

 . able abyss which separates the reader from 

 what he thinks he would have done had he 

 been in my place, and what really would 

 have been his plan of action. 



Rarer than just taxes, rarer than honest 

 faces in the rogues' gallery, rarer than rich 

 men in heaven, are the people who can 

 truthfully say that they have not met a 

 single unexpected dilemma, crisis or adven- 

 ture in just the manner that they would 

 have planned to meet it. 



There were a lot of burning questions which 

 I had privately made up in my mind to pro- 

 pound to the . Wild Hunter, or the even 

 wilder maiden, upon the occasion of our 

 next meeting. But when the beautiful 

 Diana was standing before me, with bended 

 bow and flashing eyes, the burning import- 

 ance of those questions did not appeal to me 

 as forcibly as did the urgent necessity of 

 sheltering my body behind the friendly 

 stone. To be truthful, it must be admitted 

 that the proposed inquiries were, for the 

 time, entirely forgotten, and I even breathed 

 a sigh of relief when the girl suddenly clam- 

 bered up the face of the cliff. 



She scaled that precipitous rock with the 

 rapidity and self-confidence of a gray squir- 

 rel running up the trunk of a hickory tree, 

 squirrel-like, taking advantage of every 

 crack, cranny and projection that could be 



grasped by lingers or moccasin covered 

 toes. 



Not until the maiden had disappeared 

 down a dry coulee did I venture from the 

 shelter of the protecting rock, or realize that 

 my carefully planned interview must be 

 indefinitely postponed. 



With his arms folded across his chest, his 

 blond hair sweeping his shoulders, his blue 

 eyes fixed upon a rocky rib of the mountain 

 behind which the girl had disappeared, Big 

 Pete still stood like a statue. But gradually 

 the statuesque pose resolved itself into a 

 more commonplace posture, and the mus- 

 cles of the face relaxed until the familiar 

 twinkle hovered around the corners of his 

 eyes. Bringing forth his pipe, he filled it 

 from the beaded tobacco pouch which hung 

 on his breast, and by means of a horn of 

 punk, a flint and steel, he soon had the pipe 

 aglow and was purring away as calmly as if 

 nothing unusual had occurred. Presently 

 he exclaimed, " Gol durn her purty deguero- 

 type, what good did it do her to throw that 

 sheep down the gulch ? Reckon Le-Loo and 

 me could find a better grave for mutton 

 chops than that canyonbottom. The moun- 

 tains didn't need the sheep an' we did." 

 Turning his great blue eyes full upon me, 

 he suddenly shot this inquiry, "Be she bar, 

 witch or gal?" 



"She is the finest adjusted, easiest run- 

 ning, most exquisitely balanced, highest 

 geared bit of human machinery I ever saw," 

 I answered enthusiastically. 



Wall, maybe ye are right, Le-Loo, an' 

 maybe ye hain't; which is catamount to 

 saying, maybe it is she and maybe it tain't." 



"Steady, Pete, old fellow, let us go. slow; 

 now tell me at what you're driving?" I 

 pleaded. 



"It looks to me this hea'-a-way," he 

 explained. "I'veseed her trail onct or twice, 

 an' I've seed her onct, but I never yet seed 

 her trail and the Wild Hunter's trail at the 

 same time and place. 'Pears to me that a 

 man who, when it's convenient, kin make a 

 wolf of hisself, might likewise make a gurl 

 of hisself whenever he felt that way. Never 

 heared tell on enny real gurl who cud climb 

 like a squatton and shoot a bow better nor 

 a Robin Hood or Injun, and that's howsom- 

 everl" 



"Well, it does look 'howsomever,' an^ 



