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The Spoil Of The Puma
by
“When that’s done,” said Lawless, “you will have no reason for staying here. If you will come with us after, we will go to the Fort with you. We three will then come back in the spring to the valley of gold for sport and riches.”
He spoke lightly, yet seriously too. The old man shook his head. “I have thought,” he said. “I cannot go to the south. I am a hunter now, nothing more. I have been long alone; I do not wish for change. I shall remain at Clear Mountain when these skins have gone to Fort St. John, and if you come to me in the spring or at any time, my door will open to you, and I will share all with you. Gordineer was a good man. You are good men. I’ll remember you, but I can’t go with you–no.
“Some day you would leave me to go to the women who wait for you, and then I should be alone again. I will not change–vraiment!”
On the morning they left, he took Jo Gordineer’s cup from the shelf, and from a hidden place brought out a flask half filled with liquor. He poured out a little in the cup gravely, and handed it to Lawless, but Lawless gave it back to him.
“You must drink from it,” he said, “not me.”
He held out the cup of his own flask. When each of the three had a share, the old man raised his long arm solemnly, and said in a tone so gentle that the others hardly recognised his voice: “To a lost comrade!” They drank in silence.
“A little gentleman!” said Lawless, under his breath. When they were ready to start, Lawless said to him at the last: “What will you do here, comrade, as the days go on?”
“There are pumas in the mountains,” he replied. They parted from him upon the ledge where the great fight had occurred, and travelled into the east. Turning many times, they saw him still standing there. At a point where they must lose sight of him, they looked for the last time. He was alone with his solitary hills, leaning on his rifle. They fired two shots into the air. They saw him raise his rifle, and two faint reports came in reply. He became again immovable: as much a part of those hills as the shining glacier; never to leave them.
In silence the two rounded the cliff, and saw him no more.