Part 1 (1/2)
Elam Storm, The Wolfer
by Harry Castlemon
CHAPTER I
SOMETHING ABOUT THE NUGGET
”Yes, sir; it's just like I tell you Every coyote on this here ranch,as he is, is worth forty dollars to the man who can catch him”
”Then what is the reason Carlos and I can't ain you moutn't It aint everybody who can coax one of them smart prowlers to stick his foot in a trap If that was the case, hbors would have had more sheep, and Elam Storoing to grub-stake hiain this winter, are you, Uncle Ezra?”
”Sure I always do”
”What is the reason you won't let us go with him to the mountains?”
”'Cause I know that your folks aint so tired of you that they are ready to lose you yet awhile; that's why”
”Only just a few days We'll come back at the end of the week if you say so, won't we, Carlos?”
”'Taint no use of talking, Ben; not a bit Man alive! ould I say to theoff with Elam Storm! That would be the worst yet”
”But Elam is honest and reliable You have said so h, as far as that goes, but shi+ftless--hty shi+ftless And I never said he was reliable except in one way He's reliable enough to go to thewith a hoss-back load of peltries, and that's all he is reliable for I didfor a couple of years, but then the roa with hirub-stake and lit out”
”You think that while he is in thebesides wolf-skins, don't you?”
”I know he does He's got a fool notion that will some day be the death of him, just as it has been the death of a dozen other men who tried to follow out the same notion”
”You promised to tell me all about it some day, and about Elam, too; and what better time can we have than the present? We are here by ourselves, and there is no one to break in on your story”
”Well, then, I'll tell you if it will ease youryourself as though you had an all-night's job before you to listen And perhaps when I a about the country with such a fellow as Ela and pipes The blizzard, which had been brewing for a week or more, had burst forth in all its fury, and the elehtful coh the branches of the evergreens that covered the bluff behind the cabin; the rain and sleet, freezing as they fell, rattled harshly upon the bark roof over our heads; and the whole aspect of nature, as I caught a 's supply of fire-wood, was cheerless and desolate in the extreme Our party consisted of three (or I should say four, for the Elam Storm whose name has so often been mentioned was to have shown up two days before)--Uncle Ezra Norton, as a sheep-herder in a s hunter and trapper in winter; Ben Hastings, whose father, an officer of rank in the regular army, was stationed at the fort fifty miles away; and myself, Carlos Burton, a ne'er-do-well, who--but I will say no more on that point, as perhaps you will find out what sort of a fellow I aresses We were comfortably sheltered in our valley hoood deal of its force; and accusto et to breathe a silent but heart-felt prayer for any unfortunate who ht be overtaken by the storm before he had time to reach the shelter of his cabin
Under our humble roof there arle roohted by the fire on the hearth, which roared back a defiance to the stors were heavily draped with the skins of the elk, blacktail, andthe hunt, co out all the cold and damp and darkness; and Ben and I, with our moccasoned feet thrust toward the cheerful blaze, reclined luxuriously upon a pile of genuine Navajo blankets, while our guide, friend, and mentor, Uncle Ezra Norton, sat upon his couch of balsa up from his pipe clouds of tobacco incense that broke in fleecy folds against the low roof over our heads Our ood dinner and a brief season of repose following a period of toil and hard tra that had been rewarded beyond our hopes
Uncle Ezra was a typical borderrizzly as any of the numerous speci-bored Henry Although he took no little pride in recounting Ben's exploits to the officers of the garrison, he was very strict with the boy when the latter was under his care, and never perht if he could help it
Uncle Ezra was ratitude by his kindness to me I was in trouble and he helped me out of the deepest hole I ever was in When I struck his ranch one dreary day, two years before this story begins, afoot and alone, alue, and told him that every hoof and horn I had in the world had been rounded up by a gang of cattle thieves who had driven thehtered for their hides--when I told him this he not only expressed the profoundest syrub-staked oldfroold in the region to which he sent , and, uished the preciousto pay for et away by reat loss For I had been pretty well off for a boy of fifteen, I want you to remember, and every dollar I had made was made by the hardest kind of knocks
When I first ca rew aslike an old timer, I learned rapidly, because I liked the business; and it was not long before I was the proud possessor of a herd of cattle worth six thousand dollars But it was precarious property in those days,--as uncertain as the weather