Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/136

 Lander pressed Clair's arm, but the old man had seen and already was working back into the grove. The cause of his alarm was a tall, rangy figure in fringed buckskin and carrying a long rifle.

"Hunter for the boat," murmured Clair. "The crew are easy to fool, but if he should come back in here he would see our trail. We must go back to the mules at once."

They lost no time in ascending the bluffs, the man in buckskin looming in their inner vision as a possible nemesis.

"He'll go ashore about midnight," continued Papa Clair as they found their mules and moved back a bit. "The steamer will start with the first light and pick up what he kills and hangs in trees along the shore. Steam has made women of the river travelers. But behold, I remember when corn, coffee, pork and beans were good enough for any man three times a day. That was before steam came to the Missouri. And yes, back of those days when bear was easier to get than pork we used bear meat. It wasn't so many years ago that every one used bear oil for lard. Many the long dugout I've seen come down the river with the center bin filled with oil and covered with a