“Didn’t yees pursue the subjact any further?”

“We went fur enough to find that the nimble-footed dogs had got into the mountains, and that if we wanted to keep our ha’r, we’d only got to undertake to foller ’em thar.  So we just tramped back agin, havin’ our trouble for nothin’.”

“Wasn’t that about as poor a business, for yees, as this be for me, barring yees was hunting for an old man and I’m hunting for a young woman?”

“It warn’t as foolish by a long shot, ’cause we war on the trail all the time, and kept it, while you’ve lost yours, and never’ll be able to find it agin.  We war so close more nor once that we reached their camp-fires afore the embers had died out and from the tops of two, three hills we got a glimpse on ’em on thar horses.  We traveled all night a good many times, but it done no good as they done the same thing, and we found we war further away, if anything, next morning than we war at sundown.  If we’d ever lost the trail so as not to find it we’d guv up and come home, but we never done that nor never lost more nor an hour in lookin’ for it.  You see,” added the trapper, impressively, “you never have found the trail, and, therefore, there ain’t the shadder of a chance.”

“Begorrah, yees can’t blame us whin we tried to the bist of our indeavor to find it and wasn’t able.”

“Yer done the best yer knowed, I s’pose; but why didn’t four on ’em divide so as to let one go up one side the river and one t’other, and the same way down-stream.  Yer don’t s’pose that feller was able to keep paddlin’ forever in the river, do yer? and jist so soon as he landed, jist so sure would one of them Sioux find the spot where he touched land, and foller him to his hole.”

“Begorrah, if wees had only thought of that!”

“A Sioux is as cunning a red-skin as I ever found, and it’s jist my opine every one of ’em did think of that same thing, but they didn’t try it for fear they might catch the varmint!  They knew their man, rest assured o’ that.”

Teddy looked up as if he did not comprehend the meaning of the last remark.

“‘Cordin’ to yer own showin’, one of them infarnal copper-gals was at the bottom of the hull business, and it’s like as not the men knowed about it, too, and didn’t want to catch the gal!”

“There’s where yees are mightily mistook, as Pat McGuire said whin his landlord called him honest, for ivery one of them same chocolate-colored gintlemen would have done their bist for Master Harvey.  They would have cut that thaif’s wizzen wid a mighty good will, I knows.”

“Mebbe so, but I don’t believe it!” said the hunter, with an incredulous shake of his head.

“Would ye have me give up the s’arch altogether?”

“Can’t say that I would; howsumever, the chance is small, and ye’d better go west with me, and spend the winter in l’arning how to trap fur beaver and otter.”

“What good might result from that?”