The Man from the Bitter Roots

rdn

n' about them pancakes instea

g for six months that they was great pan

to black eyes. Their hair was long and uneven, their features disguised by black beards of many weeks' growth. Their miners' boots were but ludicrous

e pallid above his beard, his thin nostrils dilated, and his hand shook as he reached for his rifle in the gun rack made of deer horns nailed above the kitchen door. He

tie it from the willows. While he filled and lighted his pipe, Bruce's eyes followed his partner as he seated himself upon the rotten thwart and shoved into the river with home-made oars that were little more than paddles. The river caught him with the

ften," he muttered, and Bruce himself was the

rst lolling tongue of the rapids reach for the tiny boat. If it filled, Slim was gone, for no human being could swim in the roaring, white stretch where the

finally,

ade it

r a bowlder, wipe the water from his rifle with his shirt

added, with somber eyes. "I ought to pull out of

wn to the river, where his old-fashioned California rocker stood

im, the ear-marks of good breeding, and the peculiar fascination of blue blood run riot, which had first attracted him in Meadows, the mountain town

erstood between them before they left Meadows, but the plan did not work out because Slim failed to do his part. Save for an occasional day of desultory work, he spent his time in the mountains, killing game for which they had no use, trapping animals whose pelts were

the fact that with his childhood he had not outgrown his quick and violent temper. In mining camps, from Mexic

s it was because he saw in Slim's erratic, surly moods a something not quite normal, a something which made him sometimes wonder if his partner was well

width and a mile and a half or so in length. He had followed a pay streak into the bank, timbering the tunn

test-colored pebble he could find to place on the pile with others so that when the day's work was done he

chanical motion of the rocker and dipper had the regularity of a machine. If he touched the dirt with so much as his finger tips he washed the

carpet apron, Bruce stooped over the rocker fre

s close to the surface in every true miner and prospector, shone in his eyes. Sometimes he frowned at the rocker and expressed his disapproval aloud, for years in isolated places had given him the habit of loneliness, and he

lly he caught a glimpse of Slim, no bigger than an insect, crawling over the rocks and around the peaks. Yet each time that he saw him B

nter. Winter's going to come quick, the way the willows are turning black. Let it come. I've got to pull out, anyhow, as things

e mountain opposite it changed the channel, leaving bed rock and bowlders, which eventually were covered by sand and gravel deposited by the spring floo

against the mountain at the back. There was enough of it carrying fine gold to inflame the imagination of the most c

s some way of get

even from a long distance, through a ditch, so the slow and laborious process he was employing seemed the only

came up warm, and then gr

"The first big snow is long overdue,

l pine trees near the cabin. He noticed that the eagle that nested in an inaccessible peak across the river swooped for home and stayed there. The redsides and the bull trout in the

crept into the air, and Bruce

leep under a rock all night with a st

matter, for he kept his pockets well filled with strips of jerked elk and venison, while

untain, which was separated from the one at the back of the bar by a ca?on, a

Whimsically he raised both arms aloft i

king their way down the rough

been down for salt." Then his face

wn again, with Old Felix in the lead, and behind

he first time he had enticed them to the salt, which he had placed on a flat rock not far from the cabin door. For the first few visits their soft black eyes, with their amber rims, had followed him timorously, and t

s dipper, and start

ook, anyhow, and se

table salt which he took from the s

to wait." He slammed the door of the improvised cupboard hard

haven't got the heart to disappoint the poor l

. Solid and perfect they were, all of nineteen and three-quarters inches at the base and tapering to needle points. Of incredible weight and size, he carried them as lightly on his powerful neck as though they were but the shells of horns. Now, as he stood with his tremulous

e murmured half apologetically as he divided the salt and sp

y lay down in leisurely fashion beside the cabin, their narrow jaws wagging ludicr

rumbled for the little bush birds that twittered and chirped in the thick

and looked at him inqu

manded humorously, "don't

a rock in the river, joyously shaking from its back t

water as cold as it is and," with a glance at th

tarted up the gulch to their place of shelter

k about, Bruce's thoughts rambled from one subje

it been-he threw back his head to calculate-how many weeks since he had looked a potato in the eye? Ha!-not

was clay coming into the pay streak. Clay gathered up the "colors" it touched like so much quicksilver. Dog-gone, if it wa

de of shots. Bruce straightened up in as

ddenly he understood. The sheep! His sheep! They were killing Old Felix and the rest! Magnificent

on a run. They were killing tame sheep-sheep that he had taught to lose their fear of man. Then his footsteps slack

was late in October, but he had no desire to meet the hunters and hear them

along the backbone of the ridge. Rough going, that. They were camped up there, and they mus

again, but foun

see what they've done. They may have left a wounded sheep

y, flying hoofs, the indentations where the sharp points had dug deep as they leaped. Empty shells, more shells-they must have been bum shots-and then a drop of blood upon a rock. The drops came thicker, a stream of blood, and then the slaughter pen. They had been shot down against the wall without a single chance for their lives. The entire band, save Old

ull, glazed eyes which had been so soft and bright as they had followed him at work a little more than an hour before. He ran hi

e hunters had gone. They shone black and vindictive through the

ope you starve and freeze back th

utting point, sharply outlined against the sky, motionless as the rock beneath him, stood