Novel 1968 - Down The Long Hills (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sue and Big Red until he did come.
    He planned to set five snares, but by the time he had found places to set two he was too cold and tired to go on with the others. Returning to their shelter, he lay down beside Betty Sue and huddled close to her. During the night it began to rain again.
    The soft patter on the leaves above them was strangely comforting. He felt Betty Sue stir beside him and he spoke to her, making his tone confident. “Pa will be coming soon. He said he would meet us.”
    “I’m hungry,” Betty Sue said.
    It was the first thing she had said all that day, and he caught at it quickly. “So’m I. Tomorrow I’ll get out an’ hunt. Don’t you worry, Betty Sue—I’ll find something.”
    But even as he spoke, he knew his chances would be slim. Wild life did not like to move when the weather was wet; aside from the discomfort, the dampness caused them to leave more scent behind. Animals knew better than to stir around in wet weather.
    Suddenly Hardy decided: if it was raining tomorrow, or even if it wasn’t, they would stay right where they were. They had water, there was good grass on the slope for Big Red, and the shelter was keeping off the rain—well, almost. Even as he thought they were snug and dry, a big drop fell down the back of his neck.
    There might be fish in the stream. Maybe nothing but suckers, but he had eaten suckers before this and they were good enough. Not like the pickerel and pike from Wisconsin, but still pretty good eating when a man was hungry. And he had seen some bird tracks, like those of a prairie chicken, only larger. Maybe one of those sage hens he’d heard the mountain man speak of.…His thoughts trailed off, and he slept.
    He had forgotten all about that Indian.
    Several times the damp cold awakened him, and once the coat had fallen off. He covered Betty Sue and himself again, and lay awake several minutes listening to the rain.
    Fort Bridger was west of here, somewhere beyond South Pass, and maybe somebody would be hunting out of that fort, and would find them. Hardy thought of the warm kitchen smells back home, and of the gaiety and laughter around the campfires on the way west.
    Suddenly a chilling fear swept over him. Suppose something had happened to pa? Suppose he wasn’t coming at all?
    The distance seemed so far. A month, Mr. Andy had said, a month by wagon train without having to walk as he had, without searching for food. Three more weeks and a bit over. Could Betty Sue keep going that long?
    He sat up and clasped his arms around his knees. He daren’t think of that. He just had to keep going. What was it pa used to say? “Give me a stayer every time. I like a man or a horse who just gets in there and keeps on going.”
    But how could they keep going? Betty Sue was already so thin it frightened him to look at her.
    As soon as it was light he had to get out and rustle, rain or no rain. So far he had only looked for food when they traveled, or when they had stopped for the night. He had not deliberately taken time out to hunt for it.
    Finally he lay down again and went to sleep, and the rain whispered him into a deeper, sounder sleep, all his tired, aching muscles relaxing slowly. The rain fell gently upon the brown grass, over the powdery dust, over the trees and the rocks. It fell where the horse had walked, and slowly the tracks disappeared, fading out bit by bit under the caressing touch of the rain.

    T HE BIG INDIAN, Ashawakie, was curious, as any wild thing is curious. Ashawakie had been trained from childhood to observe, and when he saw a little riled-up water floating by he knew something close upstream had disturbed it. When he looked that way he thought he caught the sheen of sunlight on a chestnut or sorrel flank. He had also thought he glimpsed a momentary shadow upon the waters, but he might be wrong. He said nothing to the others with him, for if there was a chance to count coups, he wanted it first; and if there was a horse to steal, he