"Can you speak English ?" "Ay, that can I," cried Dick joyfully, riding up and shaking the stranger heartily by the hand; "an' right glad am I to fall in wi' a white-skin an' a civil tongue in his head." "Good sooth, sir," replied the stranger, with a quiet smile on his kind, weather-beaten face, "I can return you the compliment; for when I saw you come thundering down the corrie with that wonderful horse and no less wonderful dog of yours, I thought you were the wild man o' the mountain himself, and had an ambush ready to back you.

But, young man, do you mean to say that you live here in the mountain all alone after this fashion ?" "No, that I don't.

I've comed here in my travels, but truly this bean't my home.

But, sir (for I see you are what the fur-traders call a bourgeois), how comes it that such a band as this rides i' the mountains?
D'ye mean to say that _they_ live here ?" Dick looked round in surprise, as he spoke, upon the crowd of mounted men and women, with children and pack-horses, that now surrounded him.
"'Tis a fair question, lad.

I am a principal among the fur-traders whose chief trading-post lies near the Pacific Ocean, on the west side of these mountains; and I have come with these trappers and their families, as you see, to hunt the beaver and other animals for a season in the mountains.