The Hunters of the Ozark | Page 2

their bodies from the effects of cold. Thus
it came about that the party of hunters, of whom I shall have more to
say further on, left Greville in the autumn of the year, and as a rule
were not seen again until spring. Since they entered a fine, fur-bearing
country, these trips generally paid well. One convenience was that the
hunters were not obliged to go to St. Louis to sell them. An agent of the
great fur company that made its headquarters at that post, came
regularly to Greville with his pack-horses and gave the same price for
the peltries that he would have given had they been brought to the
factory, hundreds of miles away. He was glad to do this, for the furs
that George Linden and his brother hunters brought in were not
surpassed in glossiness and fineness by any of the thousands gathered
from the four points of the compass.
Among the daring little band that made these regular visits to the Ozark
region was an Irishman named Michael Clark, who had had
considerable experience in gathering furs along the Mississippi. It was
at his suggestion that Greville was founded, and one-half of their

periodical journeys thus cut off. On the year following, Clark was shot
and killed by a prowling Indian. Since his wife had been dead a long
time, the only child, Terence, was thus left an orphan. The lad was a
bright, good-natured fellow, liked by every one, and he made his home
with the family of one of the other hunters named Rufus MacClaskey.
The boy was fifteen years old on the very day that he walked over to
the cabin of Fred Linden and asked him to help him hunt for the
missing cow.
The family of George Linden, while he was away, consisted of his wife,
his daughter Edith, fourteen, and his son Fred, sixteen years old. All
were ruddy cheeked, strong and vigorous, and among the best to do of
the thirty-odd families that made up the population of Greville.
"Has the cow ever been lost before?" asked Fred, as he and the Irish lad
swung along beside each other, neither thinking it worth while to
burden himself with a rifle.
"Niver that I knows of, and I would know the same if she had been lost;
we're onaisy about the cow, for you see that if this kaaps on and she
doesn't come back I'll have to live on something else than bread and
milk and praties."
"Our cow came back just at sunset last night."
"And so did them all, exciptin' our own, which makes me more
onwillin' to accipt any excuse she may have to give."
"Let me see, Terry; Brindle wore a bell round her neck, didn't she?"
"That she did, and she seemed quite proud of the same."
"Did you make hunt for her last night?"
"I hunted as long as I could see to hunt; she wasn't missed, that is till
after they got home. Whin I found that I didn't find her I started to find
her; but I hadn't time to hunt very long whin it got dark and I had to
give it up."

"And didn't you hear any thing of the bell?"
"Do ye think that if I heard the bell I wouldn't have found the cow?
Why was the bell put round her neck if it wasn't to guide friends? I
listened many a time after it got dark, but niver a tinkle did I hear."
"That is queer," said Fred half to himself; "for, when no wind is
blowing and it is calm, you can hear that bell a long ways; father has
caught the sound in the woods, when the Brindle was all of a mile off. I
wonder whether she could have lost the bell."
"I've thought of that, and said to meself that it might be also that she
had become lost herself in trying to find it."
Fred laughed.
"She hardly knows enough for that; and, if she found the bell she
wouldn't know what to do with it; but if that leathern string around her
neck had broken, it may be that she is close by. A cow after losing one
milking is apt to feel so uncomfortable that she hurries home to be
relieved; but what's the use of talking?" added Fred, throwing up his
head and stepping off at a more lively pace; "we've started out to find
her and that's all we have to do."
Perhaps a dozen acres had been cleared around the little town of
Greville. This had been planted with corn, potatoes and grain, though
scores of unsightly stumps were left and interfered with the cultivation
of the soil. Beyond this clearing or open space extended