It was at the next camp that Linday heard how Rocky had come to be injured.

“I’d ben up the draw, about a mile from the cabin, lookin’ for a piece of birch likely enough for an axe-handle.  Comin’ back I heard the darndest goings-on where we had a bear trap set.  Some trapper had left the trap in an old cache an’ Rocky’d fixed it up.  But the goings-on.  It was Rocky an’ his brother Harry.  First I’d hear one yell and laugh, an’ then the other, like it was some game.  An’ what do you think the fool game was?  I’ve saw some pretty nervy cusses down in Curry County, but they beat all.  They’d got a whoppin’ big panther in the trap an’ was takin’ turns rappin’ it on the nose with a light stick.  But that wa’n’t the point.  I just come out of the brush in time to see Harry rap it.  Then he chops six inches off the stick an’ passes it to Rocky.  You see, that stick was growin’ shorter all the time.  It ain’t as easy as you think.  The panther’d slack back an’ hunch down an’ spit, an’ it was mighty lively in duckin’ the stick.  An’ you never knowed when it’d jump.  It was caught by the hind leg, which was curious, too, an’ it had some slack I’m tellin’ you.

“It was just a game of dare they was playin’, an’ the stick gettin’ shorter an’ shorter an’ the panther madder ’n madder.  Bimeby they wa’n’t no stick left—­only a nubbin, about four inches long, an’ it was Rocky’s turn.  ‘Better quit now,’ says Harry.  ‘What for?’ says Rocky.  ’Because if you rap him again they won’t be no stick left for me,’ Harry answers.  ‘Then you’ll quit an’ I win,’ says Rocky with a laugh, an’ goes to it.

“An’ I don’t want to see anything like it again.  That cat’d bunched back an’ down till it had all of six feet slack in its body.  An’ Rocky’s stick four inches long.  The cat got him.  You couldn’t see one from t’other.  No chance to shoot.  It was Harry, in the end, that got his knife into the panther’s jugular.”

“If I’d known how he got it I’d never have come,” was Linday’s comment.

Daw nodded concurrence.

“That’s what she said.  She told me sure not to whisper how it happened.”

“Is he crazy?” Linday demanded in his wrath.

“They’re all crazy.  Him an’ his brother are all the time devilin’ each other to tom-fool things.  I seen them swim the riffle last fall, bad water an’ mush-ice runnin’—­on a dare.  They ain’t nothin’ they won’t tackle.  An’ she’s ’most as bad.  Not afraid some herself.  She’ll do anything Rocky’ll let her.  But he’s almighty careful with her.  Treats her like a queen.  No camp-work or such for her.  That’s why another man an’ me are hired on good wages.  They’ve got slathers of money an’ they’re sure dippy on each other.  ‘Looks like good huntin’,’ says Rocky, when they struck that section last fall.  ‘Let’s make a camp then,’ says Harry.  An’ me all the time thinkin’ they was lookin’ for gold.  Ain’t ben a prospect pan washed the whole winter.”

Linday’s anger mounted.  “I haven’t any patience with fools.  For two cents I’d turn back.”