It looked good to Stubener. Beyond doubt there was a young Pat Glendon,
as well as an old one, living out beyond. That night the manager spent
at the logging camp of Alpine, and early the following morning he rode
a mountain cayuse up Antelope Valley. He rode over the divide and down
Bear Creek. He rode all day, through the wildest, roughest country
he had ever seen, and at sunset turned up Pinto Valley on a trail so
stiff and narrow that more than once he elected to get off and walk.
It was eleven o'clock when he dismounted before a log cabin and was
greeted by the baying of two huge deer-hounds. Then Pat Glendon opened
the door, fell on his neck, and took him in.
"I knew ye'd come, Sam, me boy," said Pat, the while he limped about,
building a fire, boiling coffee, and frying a big bear-steak. "The
young un ain't home the night. We was gettin' short of meat, and he
went out about sundown to pick up a deer. But I'll say no more. Wait
till ye see him. He'll be home in the morn, and then you can try him
out. There's the gloves. But wait till ye see him.
"As for me, I'm finished. Eighty-one come next January, an' pretty good
for an ex-bruiser. But I never wasted meself, Sam, nor kept late hours
an' burned the candle at all ends. I had a damned good candle, an' made
the most of it, as you'll grant at lookin' at me. And I've taught the
same to the young un. What do you think of a lad of twenty-two that's
never had a drink in his life nor tasted tobacco? That's him. He's
a giant, and he's lived natural all his days. Wait till he takes you
out after deer. He'll break your heart travelin' light, him a carryin'
the outfit and a big buck deer belike. He's a child of the open air,
an' winter nor summer has he slept under a roof. The open for him,
as I taught him. The one thing that worries me is how he'll take
to sleepin' in houses, an' how he'll stand the tobacco smoke in the
ring. 'Tis a terrible thing, that smoke, when you're fighting hard an'
gaspin' for air. But no more, Sam, me boy. You're tired an' sure should
be sleepin'. Wait till you see him, that's all. Wait till you see him."
But the garrulousness of age was on old Pat, and it was long before
he permitted Stubener's eyes to close.
"He can run a deer down with his own legs, that young un," he broke out
again. "'Tis the dandy trainin' for the lungs, the hunter's life. He
don't know much of else, though, he's read a few books at times an'
poetry stuff. He's just plain pure natural, as you'll see when you
clap eyes on him. He's got the old Irish strong in him. Sometimes, the
way he moons about, it's thinkin' strong I am that he believes in the
fairies and such-like. He's a nature lover if ever there was one, an'
he's afeard of cities. He's read about them, but the biggest he was
ever in was Deer Lick. He misliked the many people, and his report
was that they'd stand weedin' out. That was two years agone--the
first and the last time he's seen a locomotive and a train of cars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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