e; and if
I don't say `hallo!' to that, I'm all right--in the land of Nod."

March Marston smiled as he said this, and Bounce grinned by way of
reply.

"Wot'll I tell ye about, boy?"

"I don't mind what--Indians, grislies, buffaloes, trappers--it's all one
to me; only begin quick and go ahead strong."

"Well, I ain't great at story-tellin'! P'r'aps it would be more to the
p'int if I was to tell ye about what I heer'd tell of on my last trip to
the Mountains. Did I ever tell ye about the feller as the trappers that
goes to the far North calls the `Wild Man o' the West'?"

"No; what was he?" said Marston, yawning and closing his eyes.

"I dun know 'xactly wot he _was_. I'm not overly sure that I even know
wot he _is_, but I know wot the trappers says of him; an' if only the
half o't's true, he's a shiner, he is."

Having said this much, Bounce filled his tomahawk, lighted it, puffed a
large cloud from it, and looked through the smoke at his companion.

March, whose curiosity was aroused, partly by the novelty of the "Wild
Man's" title, and partly by the lugubrious solemnity of Bounce, said--

"Go on, old boy."

"Ha! it's easy to say, `go on;' but if you know'd the 'orrible things as
is said about the Wild Man o' the Mountains, p'r'aps you'd say, `Go
off.' It 'll make yer blood froze."

"Never mind."

"An' yer hair git up on end."

"Don't care."

"An' yer two eyes start out o' yer head."

"All right."

Bounce, who was deeply superstitious, looked at his young friend with
severe gravity for at least two minutes. Marston, who was not quite so
superstitious, looked at his comrade for exactly the same length of
time, and winked with one eye at the end of it.

"They says," resumed Bounce in a deep tone, "the Wild Man o' the West
_eats men_!"

"Don't he eat women?" inquired March sleepily.

"Yes, an' childers too. An' wot's wuss, he eats 'em raw, an' they say
he once swallered one--a little one--alive, without chewin' or chokin'!"
("Horrible!" murmured March.) "He's a dead shot, too; he carries a
double-barrelled rifle twenty foot long that takes a small cannon-ball.
I forgot to tell ye he's a giant--some o' the trappers calls him the
`giant o' the hills,' and they say he's 'bout thirty feet high--some
says forty. But there's no gittin' at the truth in this here wurld."

Bounce paused here, but, as his companion made no observation, he went
on in a half-soliloquising fashion, looking earnestly al