Page:The Prairie Flower; Or, Adventures In the Far West.djvu/55



trith even this victory. Maddened with rage, and a desire of farther revenge, they actually leaped onward after the fugitives, and quickly disappt ired from our view. For a lime we could hear them shouting and yelling; but gradually the sounds grew fainter and more faint, until at last nothing whatever could be heard.

"The infernal skunks!" said Black George, stepping out from behind his tree, and giving vent to a quiet, inward laugh, peculiar to men of his profession. " Reck on they'll stay put a few, and not trouble as agin in a hurry; " and again he laughed as before. " But what fools Ned and Will is? They're never content with a fair whip, but must al'ays be tryin to do a heap more; and some day they'll git thar hair raised, and go under with a vengeance, or I'm no sinner. But I say, Tom?"

' Well, boss?"

' Didn't we throw 'em purty?"

' Well we did, old coon."

' I'll be dog-gone if we didn't. Come,

let

s lift thar hair auo-h!

With this, both trappers drew their knives, and taking from a little bag at tached to their garments a small sand stone, commenced sharpening them Avith as much indifference as if they were about to slice a buffalo, instead of dipping them in the blood of human beings. When done, their whetstones were carefully re placed, and then turning to me, who with Huntly and Teddy had meantime gathered around the two, the old mountaineer said :

"Boy, you've done somethin for the fust time, and needn't be ashamed on't. Throwed him cold in his tracks, I'll be dog-gone ef you didn't!" and he nodded toward the Indian I had slain. "Well, he's your meat; and so at him and raise his top-knot afore he gits cold."

I shuddered at the bare thought of such barbarity, and involuntarily shrunk back.

"0, then you're a leetle squeamish, hey? Well, I've heern tell o' sich things afore : but it won't last long, Bosson, take my word for't. Ef you don't raise hair afore you're a thousand year older, jest call me a liar and stop off' my bacca."

"No!" I replied, firmly : " I could never be brought to degrade myself by a custom wtech originated with, and, if it' must still be practiced, should eve" belong to, the

savage. I may kill an Indian in my defence, but I cannot mutilate him when dead.. I was bred in a very different school."

"Bread, be !" returned Black

George, not comprehending any meaning. "This here ain't bread it's meat; and as to skule, as you calls it, why that ar belongs to the setlements; and haint got nothin to do out hereaways in the woods. Eh! Tom?"

"Well it haint."

"No, I'll be rumfuzzled ef it hev! And so, stranger, ef you want to show you're smart a heap, you'll jest lift that ar skunk's hair and say no more about it. Eh! Tom?"

"Fact! augh!"

"No!" I rejoined in a decisive tone, " I will have nothing to do with it. If you choose to scalp the Indian, that is no busi ness of mine; but I will not so degrade myself."

"Well, ef your mind's made up, in course it's no use o' talkin; and so, Tom, let's begin to slice."

At this moment we heard the report of a distant rifle, quickly followed by another.

"Them boys is eyther throwed now, or else some Injins have got rubbed out," ob served Black George indifferently, "Come, Tom, let's lift."

Saying this, the old trapper and his companion set about their bloody work, The first Indian they came to was not dead; and running his knife into his heart, with a barbarous coolness that made me shudder, Black George observed :

"That's your meat, Tom."

He then pas.sed on, leaving the latter to finish the bloody task. Bending over the now dead savage, and seizing him by the hair of the head which, instead of a long lock or cue as worn by some tribes, was short and ridged, like the comb of a fowl. Daring Tom ran his knife round the skull bone with a scientific flourish, tore off the scalp, and knocking it on the ground to free it as much as possible from gouts of blood, coolly attached it to his girdle, and proceeded to the next.

"What a horrid custom!" I exclaimed, turning to Huntly.

"It is, truly," he replied. "But then you know, Frank, it is one thai