“So you mought well think. It ain’t one man but a dozen hez gone under, time and ag’in, here in the Black Hills. Whatever it is, it hates a man like death. Don’t you talk too much, young ’un; it mought hurt ye.” “These scratches are nothing,” replied Morris. “I shall be well in a day or two.” “Look around ye and see how ye like the place ye’ve got to live in till we go to the States.” CHAPTER IV. THE TRAPPING-GROUND. The stream on which they halted was one of the tributaries of the Missouri, the _Cache la Poudre_, which flowed through the passes of the Black Hills not more than forty miles from Fort Laramie. From the place where they stood, they could see the peaks of the three brothers, the Buttes, raising their heads on high. Mount Laramie loomed up in the distance and at their feet the river poured on down the mountain-pass. Near the place where they stood, that sagacious animal, the beaver, had dammed the stream and made themselves homes. The round tops of the little huts rose above the water, and knowing heads were peeping out at the strange intruders. In all probability, no other feet than those of Ben Miffin had ever trod the banks of the stream, if we except the Indian hunters. The entrance was narrow and crooked, and once in, the eternal rocks seemed to rise on every hand, inaccessible to mortal feet. Low growths of pine and the creeping forms of the cactus were the only vegetation. The silence was unbroken by a single sound. Ben looked at his companions in triumph. They had met him in St. Louis, and he had thought proper to reveal to them his discovery and make them partners in his toils. He was not avaricious, and he found them with no wealth except their weapons, eager to try his trapping-ground. He wished to better their condition, and had taken this way to do it. Personally, he knew nothing of them or their antecedents. But they had appealed to his sympathies in their destitution, and no man ever appealed to him in vain. He had a large heart, open always to the cry of the needy. In another sphere he would have been a philanthropist. In his own, he was only a true-hearted, simple man, with only one object, and that to live out his simple life as the Maker whom in his rough way he reverenced, would have him. Jan had told him wonderful tales of the prowess he had shown in hunting in southern Africa, where he had been when a young man. It only required a little of the rough experience of the prairie to show him that he was not the mighty Nimrod he had made himself out to be. But, Ben cared nothing for this, and was pleased with the eccentricities of the Dutchman. “Thar,” said the trapper; “ain’t thet a sight fur sore eyes? Thar’s peltries enough in this yer stream to make us rich all summer.” “Vat ish dem?” said Jan, pointing to the beaver-houses; “who live dere?” “Injuns!” said Ben.