h?" demanded the
trapper, indignantly.

"I axes pardon, but I was under the impression they had run away with
her as they did with Miss Cora."

"Hang 'em, no! If they'd have done that I'd have chased 'em to the
Pacific ocean and back agin afore I'd give 'em up."

"And that's what meself intends to do regarding Miss Cora."

"Yer see, yer don't know much about red-skins and their devilments,
and therefore, it's my private opine, instead of getting the gal,
they'll git you, and there'll be the end on't."

"Tim, couldn't yees make the s'arch wid me?" asked Teddy, in a deeply
earnest voice. The trapper shook his head.

"Like to do't, but can't. It's time I was up to the beaver runs this
night and had my traps set. Yer see I'm _compelled_ to be in St. Louey
at the end of six months and hain't got a day to spare."

"Mister Harvey has money, or, if he hasn't, he has friends in St.
Louis, be the same token, that has abundance of it, and you'd find it
paid you bitter in the ind than catching poor, innocent beavers, that
niver did yees harm."

"I don't foller sich business for money, but I've agreed to be in St.
Louey at the time I was tellin' you, and it's allers a p'int of honor
with me to keep my agreements."

"Couldn't yees be doing that, and this same thing, too?"

"Can't do't. S'pose I should git on the trail that is lost, can yer
tell me how fur I'd have to foller it? Yer see I've been in that
business afore, and know what it is. Me and three others once chased a
band of Blackfeet, that had carried off an old man, till we could see
the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and git a taste of the breath of
wind that comes down from their ice and snow in middle summer."

"Didn't yees pursue the subjact any further?"

"We went fur enough to find that the nimble-footed dogs had got into
the mountains, and that if we wanted to keep our ha'r, we'd only got
to undertake to foller 'em thar. So we just tramped back agin, havin'
our trouble for nothin'."

"Wasn't that about as poor a business, for yees, as this be for me,
barring yees was hunting for an old man and I'm hunting for a young
woman?"

"It warn't as foolish by a long shot, 'cause we _war on the trail_ all
the time, and kept it, while you've lost yours, and never'll be able
to find it agin. We war so close more nor once that we reached their
camp-fires afore the embers had died out and from the tops of two,
three hills we got a glimpse on 'em on thar horses. We t