his broad chest and looked the boy straight
in the eyes.

Never will I forget that picture, the cold, bleak, snow-covered
mountains towering above them, the black abyss of Sheol between them;
neither would hesitate to take life, neither possessed a fear of death;
but with every muscle alert and every nerve alive these two wild things
stood facing each other, mutually observing a truce because of--what?
Because, in spite of the fighting instinct or, maybe, because of it they
both secretly admired each other.

CHAPTER XII

The black chasm which separated us from the trail of the wild hunter was
not as formidable a barrier as the unfathomable abyss which separates
the reader from what he thinks he would have done had he been in my
place, and what really would have been his plan of action.

There were a lot of burning questions which I had privately made up in
my mind to propound to the Wild Hunter, or the even wilder medicine
bear, upon the occasion of our next meeting. But when the lad was
standing before me, with bended bow and flashing eyes, the burning
importance of those questions did not appeal to me as forcibly as did
the urgent necessity of sheltering my body behind the friendly stone. To
be truthful, it must be admitted that the proposed inquiries were, for
the time, entirely forgotten, and I even breathed a sigh of relief when
the boy suddenly clambered up the face of the cliff, turned, gave us a
fierce look of defiance, made some quick energetic gestures with his
hand and disappeared.

He scaled that precipitous rock with the rapidity and self-confidence of
a gray squirrel running up the trunk of a hickory tree, squirrel-like,
taking advantage of every crack, cranny and projection that could be
grasped by fingers or moccasin-covered toes.

Not until the Indian had disappeared down a dry coulee did I venture
from the shelter of the protecting rock, or realize that my carefully
planned interview must be indefinitely postponed.

With his arms folded across his chest, his blond hair sweeping his
shoulders, his blue eyes fixed upon a rocky rib of the mountain behind
which the boy had disappeared, Big Pete still stood like a statue. But
gradually the statuesque pose resolved itself into a more commonplace
posture, and the muscles of the face relaxed until the familiar twinkle
hovered around the corners of his eyes. "What did he say when he made
those motions, Pete?"

"Waugh! he said he was not afrai