The Red River Half-Breed

e western slope of the Rocky Mountains, were only one reaching a reas

ine spread in brown. The breath of numberless icy caverns murmured of the stupendous crysta

d ones, reflected from ice, softened by snows, sparkling in torrents as the sc

nd guards of the little train proceeded with the perfection of experience to be acquire

rous than those imagine who never can see them collected, to find two mountain

ge. His blue eyes were mild enough in repose to charm the most timid maid; but in action they became fierce and sharp as a buffalo's at bay. They were eyes that could follow a trail without his getting out of the saddle or leaning over much. His nose was long, rather curved than straight, with pliant nostrils which rose and fell freely in his liberal respiration for the supply of a massive chest. The mouth was full of teeth, strong, sound and white, as only garnish those who

ave lost the tendency to stretch in the wet which plays the mischief with leather garments. Balancing a sword bayonet on one hip, not unlike a machete, hung a hatchet, whilst his six-shooters were of a size that promised damage at a longish range. His gun was peculiar. It was a "yager," or short rifle of the old United States dragoons, sending a large ball; he had had it converted into a breechloader, a "fourteen shoot," with the availability to reserve the store and load at the muzzle with any particular charge independently. The stock was fortified with ho

, but his time had not come, he would ha

small beadlike black eyes sparkled with daring cunning and a kind of nourished hatred. Spite of his savage airs and war paint, the close observer must have perceived that he had enjoyed civilisation at one period. He was not an "unwashed Injin." Indeed, Cherokee

to a lonely street, and called him affectionately. It was his mother, whom he had rarely seen, and whose

those days"-1830-50. There was no doubt that he possessed some secret knowledge of the winter refuges of the wild animals valuable in commerce. Hither he went, always alone, to slay the pick at leisure. Quaint, hearty, "whole-souled," "Old Bill" Williams had not an enemy, spite of t

the old mossback when he has his shooting iron

the old hunters would sadly shake their frosting brows and feelingly mutter, "Old Billy's gone up, sure! 'Tell 'ee for a true thing, th

by dry cold. It was the veteran trapper. He was in the position of a hunter awaiting a prowling foe ambushed in the shrub, his rifle in advance, his shrunken face still leaning out eagerly. In the leather shirt and breast, almost as tanned with sun and wind, was a bullet's wound: the squaw could even chisel it out of the frozen flesh, where blo

et" of the Rocky Mountains' gold store; but he, no more than his pure whit

ttention from Cherokee Bill

hing to alarm him; nor had the animals, usually

ered Bill, who spoke g

in doubt of his comrade's

and-the sight is extended indefinitely, and masses of shadows in vast valleys look like mere specks in the expanses of light, so that the space between the standpoint and a distant

after all, it's no odds-we are 'to home!'" with

livity at the side of the "road," so to flatter it, and scrambling along an icy torrent of

own by an irresistible tornado. But there had been traced here a kind of way, through which the pack animals insinuated themselves with the sureness of a cat, brushing off nothing of their loads. As for the two horses, they were more familiar with the strange path, and threaded it

the extent, nearer three quarters of a mile than a half on the straight. No human hand had fashioned it; one must presume that, in the days when Vulcan swayed over Neptune on the earth, a torrent of lava was rushin

w hue, streaked with red and black; but here and there rose separate boulders of quartz, disintegrated by time and rain and whirling winds, which danced these Titanic blocks like thistles, and squeezed out those dull misshapen lumps. Those lumps were gold, however; this was a "mother-source"-one of those nests of Fortune for which the confirmed gold seeker quits home, family, wealth itself in other mines that content the less ravenous. Ridge traversed this

of the grotto. The walls gleamed back the rising firelight; here amber s

to roast like so many potatoes, and added to the setting-out of a rude but hearty meal several of the delicacies brought in the train from Oregon. He was calmly smoking, reclining at great ease, with the air of one who felt he had earned the

r his shoulder with no more delicacy

Bill!" rem

nderfoot," was the rejoinder, as he flun