venture?" "A trapper?" "An honest trapper! What did you take us for?—robbers and murderers?" said the hunter, indignantly. "Well, I kind o' don't know," rejoined the stranger, with a significant glance at Cherokee Bill, whose savage eyes were not reassuring like the other's. "My name is no value out here, four thousand miles from my folks, I guess; but if you are a regular trapper—" "I am called the Old Man of the Mountain," said Ridge, sadly rather than proudly. "I am about the last of the old guard—I fear one of the oldest men. I am Jim Ridge. That's the young man's best companion out here, that's called the Yager—same name put on me, too, by the hearing of it; the Yager of the Yellowstone. When I handled that first in '42, I bent a trifle under the weight. Them was the grand, good old times! The sort of men we get now don't grade up with the brand that passed up to 1850. They don't hunt now—they butcher. They don't trap—they surround and slaughter. They'll be clearing out a beaver lake with a diving bell, next! I wonder! Yes, I am the Old Man, the Yager of the Yellowstones," he repeated, a little piqued at his fame falling on a dead ear—"Injin or white, they all know this child." The stranger seemed easier; but, unfortunately, the ghost of a smile on his wan features was assumed to be impudence. "Answer, then," went on Ridge, testily, "for I don't want none of your blood on my knife, though it is itching to be in at your ribs." "Nonsense. You are neither hasty nor bloodthirsty, Mr. Ridge. One question from me first, if you please—" Old Jim waved his hand disgustedly at this polite address, and the "Mistering." "I just want to know if you know Mr. Brasher, of Varina?" "Do I know 'Trading Jake?' Muchly; and ever so long. Those bales are for him," pointing to a stack against the walls. "Then I have a message for you, Mr. Ridge," went on the prisoner, relieved entirely. "A letter?" "The letter is lost; I ate it up when a gang of Digger Indians played the joke of making me exchange a good outfit for these rags. Luckily, they thought it was a talisman, and that to cook me and eat me with that medicine paper in my gullet was an error, and so I got away, together with my gun. But I know the contents, and they are
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