The Huge Hunter | Page 8

for a moment. But it was only for a moment, when he decidedly shook his
head.
'I wish you wouldn't ask me, for I don't want to sell it, until I have had it some time.
Besides, it isn't finished yet.'
'It ain't,' exclaimed Baldy, in surprise. 'Why, it workswhat more do you want?'
'I've got to make a wagon to run behind it.'
'That's it, eh? I thought you war goin' to ride on its back. How much will it draw?'
'As much as four horses, and as fast as they can run.'
The hunter was half wild with excitement. The boy's delight was never equal to one-half
of his.
'Skulp me ag'in, ef that don't beat all! It's jest the thing for the West; we'll walk through
the Injins in the tallest kind of style, and skear 'em beautiful. How long afore you'll have
it done?'
'It will take a month longer, at least.'
Baldy stood a few minutes in thought.

'See here, younkerwe're on our way to the 'diggin's,' and spect to be thar all summer. Ef
the red-skins git any ways troublesome, I'm comin' back arter this y'ar covey. Ef yer don't
want to sell him, yer needn't. Ef I bought him, it ain't likely I'd run him long afore I'd bust
his b'iler, or blow my own head off.'
'Just what I thought when you were trying to persuade me to sell it,' interrupted the boy.
'Then, if he got the cramp in any of his legs, I wouldn't know how to tie it up ag'in, and
thar we'd be.'
'I am glad to see you take such a sensible view of it,' smiled Johnny.
'So, I'm goin' on West, as I said, with two fools besides myself, and we're goin' to stay
thar till yer get this old thing finished; and then I'm comin' after you to take a ride out
thar.'
'That would suit me very well,' replied the boy, his face lighting up with more pleasure
than he had shown. 'I would be very glad to make a trip on the prairies.'
'Wal, look fur me in about six weeks.'
And with this parting, the hunter was let out the door, and disappeared, while Johnny
resumed his work.
That day saw the steam man completed, so far as it was possible. He was painted up, and
every improvement made that the extraordinarily keen mind of the boy could suggest.
When he stood one side, and witnessed the noiseless but powerful workings of the
enormous legs, he could not see that anything more could be desired.
It now remained for him to complete the wagon, and he began at once.
It would have been a much easier matter for him to have secured an ordinary carriage or
wagon, and alter it to suit himself; but this was not in accordance with the genius of the
boy. No contrivance could really suit him unless he made it himself. He had his own
ideas, which no one else could work out to his satisfaction.
It is unnecessary to say that the vehicle was made very strong and durable.
This was the first great requisite. In some respects it resembled the ordinary express
wagons, except that it was considerably smaller.
It had heavy springs, and a canvas covering, with sufficient, as we have shown in another
place, to cover the man also, when necessary.
This was arranged to carry the wood, a reserve of water, and the necessary tools to repair
it, when any portion of the machinery should become disarranged.
English coal could be carried to last for two days, and enough wood to keep steam going

for twenty-four hours. When the reserve tank in the bottom of the wagon was also filled,
the water would last nearly as long.
When these contingencies were all provided against, the six weeks mentioned by the
hunter were gone, and Johnny Brainerd found himself rather longing for his presence
again.
CHAPTER V.
ON THE YELLOWSTONE.
BALDY BICKNELL was a hunter and trapper who, at the time we bring him to the
notice of the reader, had spent something over ten years among the mountains and
prairies of the West.
He was a brave, skillful hunter, who had been engaged in many desperate affrays with the
red-skins, and who, in addition to the loss of the hair upon the crown of his head, bore
many other mementos on his person of the wild and dangerous life that he had led.
Like most of his class, he was a restless being, constantly flitting back and forth between
the frontier towns and the western wilds. He never went further east than St. Louis, while
his wanderings, on more than one occasion, had led him beyond the Rocky Mountains.
One autumn he reached the