Читать книгу Little Rifle; or, The Young Fur Hunters онлайн

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“Did you find the beavers any more plenty, than they are here?”

“Yes; ten thousand times, that is figgertively speakin’, as the preachers down in the settlements say. Peltries is plenty, but as is ginerally the case, the red-skins are as thick as grasshoppers, and they kept me dodgin’ round like a bull in fly time. We’ve got to send down to Fr’isco, for a lot of lamps to carry ’round at night, so as to keep from tumbling over ’em, and when we ride our hosses toward the fort, we’ve got to set a lamp on each ear to keep ’em from stepping onto ’em. I think I mashed a dozen or two of ’em, without knowing it, ’cause I mind me now that I stepped onto something, two or three times, that felt kind of soft.”

“They are strange creatures, Uncle Ruff, and I can’t understand why they should hate the whites worse than they hate the rattlesnake under their feet.”

“I s’pose ’cause the whites feel just as lovely toward them. You see it’s a squar’ deal all round.”

“I know but I can’t see any reason in it. There was that Blackfoot to-day. He must have seen me when I climbed up on a high rock to take a look at the surrounding country, and the very minute he saw me, that very minute he went to work to get my scalp. They are a strange people.”