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Show THE CENTENNIAL STATE. 473 man's hand or a woman's face, rose on the horizon of their friendship. Chance expressions were repeated with additions; petulant remarks, which the speaker was sorry for ere they died upon the air, grew from lip to lip and reached the other's ears as vile slanders; for " mutual friends" are as busy and blundering in the wilds as in the city. Vaughn, the elder, was a grizzled mountaineer, with the dry humor of a " Tennessee Yankee " ; his sarcasm was cutting, and he affected an indifference to woman's charms. La Bonte, on the contrary, had all the impetuosity of the Frenchman, which had survived through all the generations since his forefathers settled in Canada. The life of a voyageur and trapper had only heightened his mercurial tempera-ment; he was a backwoods dandy, and adorned his person with the handiwork of squaws. One fine morning in 1843, they rode into the Pueblo fort fast friends, as they persuaded themselves, having settled their little differences; that night they parted rivals, and consequently enemies. This transformation was affected by the smiles of a brown mestizo,, who had previously pledged her " punic faith" to Vaughn, but to- day, seeing La Bonte for the first time, was charmed by his youthful gallantry and French display. To the older hunter this was blackest treachery on the part of his friend; to the younger it was fair emulation. A week after, they met at a trappers' rendezvous. Hot words ensued and knives were drawn; but there was no liquor on the ground so early in the season, and friends separated them without bloodshed. Then spoke the Tennesseean: " Compadre, seem' what you have been, I don't want none o' your blood on my weepins. Go you one way, I'll go another. When this season's over, let the best man win her." " I'm white on this thing," replied La Bonte ; " my hunt this year is up the Cache La Poudre." " Then," was the answer, " I'll go the Sangre de Christo run with these men. No tricks now you don't turn back to Pueblo?" It was settled; but unfortunately for Vaughn's resolution his party lingered, and he was deputed to go to Pueblo for further supplies. There he learned that La Bonte had returned, and, after a brief court-ship of two days, taken the mestizo, his own, as Vaughn considered her to one of the northern posts. In all the solitary hours of that season's hunt he brooded over his wrong, till hatred possessed his soul. Meanwhile, as if driven by fate, La Bonte crossed the mount-ains, having found the season bad on the Cache La Poudre, and turned southward into the very region he had promised his rival to avoid. One day, as Vaughn rested his horse in a pinon thicket, he |