Explore "The Red River Half-Breed" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
More uneasy about the Indians, whom Captain Kidd knew to be embittered when repulsed at an almost victory, and about the trappers whom he rightly conjectured to have interfered to save the Canadians from annihilation, he moved leisurely to the rendezvous with the convict in order to examine the ground. But nothing was visible to accentuate his fears, and, spying the fantastic block of lava stone in question, he hastened to congratulate Dick on the splendid lie by which the gold seekers were given the credit of saving the Bois Brules. As he expected, the Englishman, not having his own cause to move slowly, was already at the tryst. At all events, a figure in all points resembling his was before the stone, clearly outlined against it, though he was puzzled to account for a second object, human in form, but of an abnormal flesh colour, like a "raw" corpse, pendant a foot or two from the ground as if hung to a jutting point of the natural obelisk.
"Fool that I am! " suddenly ejaculated Captain Kidd, who had stopped with a chill to the heart, "It's the strange light before nightfall that is giving me a scare! Why, it's nothing but a young bear that he has killed and flayed! -- Bear's steak for supper! Ha, ha!"