but l'I
THE PRAIRIE FLOWER; OR
make it short; for I never likes to talk much 'bout that gal; I al'ays feel so much all overish, I can't tell ye how."
"Perhaps you got in love with her," returned Huntly, jocosely.
Tho old trapper suddenly paused, with the meat half way to his mouth, and turn ed upon my friend with a frown and gleam ing eyes.
"Look heyar, boy," he said, "you didn't mean to insult this child, I reckon?"
"Far from it," answered Hunliy, quick ly. "I only spoke in jest, and crave par don if I offended."
"'Twon't do to jest about everything, young chap, case thar is spots as won't bear rub bin. Howsomever, I sees you didn't mean nothin, and so I'll not pack it. Talkin of love! Now I doesn't know much 'bout the article, though I've seed nigh sixty year, and never was spliced to no gal; but I'll tell you what 'tis, Bosson, ef I'd bin thirty year younger, ef I hadn't made tracks with that 'ar gal, and hitched, then call me a nigger and let me spile."
"How old was she?" I asked.
"Jest old enough to be purty, she was."
"But how had she found you so oppor tunely?"
"That's whar I'm fooled; for though I axed her, and she told me, I'll be dog-gone
O O
ef I wasn't thinkin how purty she looked when she talked, and let the whole on't slip me like tryin to throw a buffler with a greased rope. All I could ever ketch on't was, that she, or some other Tnjin, or some body else, come across me, and tuk me in, did up my scratches, and fetched me sen sible. She said she was purty much of. a beaver among the Injins, and could do 'bout as she tuk a notion; but that ef I wanted my hair, I'd better be leavin right smartly, or maybe I'd be made meat of tugh!
"Well, arter it come dark, she packed some fodder for me, and acterly went her self along and seed me through the camp for it wasn't a reg'lar village of Injins no tow.
"' What tribe's this? ' I axed, arter I'd got ready to quit.
"' That you musn't know,' she scz. Ax no questions, but set your face that- -irays, and keep your nose afore ye till
daylight, and don't come heyar agin, os
you're dead nigger."
"'But ef you won't tell this child the Injins, tell me who you is!"
"' I'm called Leni-Leoti, or Perrarie- Flower,',sez she; and then afore I could say, ' 0, you is hey! ' she turned anl put back like darnation.
"I'd a great notion to fuller her, and I cussed myself arterwards case I didn't; but I spect I was feelin green then, and so I did jest as she told me ef I didn't, I wish I may be dogged! When, it come mornin, I looked all round, and concluded I was on tother side of the ' Divide.' So ! I tuk si new track, and arter many days' j travel, fetched up in Brown's Hole, whar I found lots of trappers, and spent the win ter augh! Now don't ax no more, for you've got all this hoss is agoin to tell; for the whisky's out, the bacca's low, this coon's hungered, and the meat's a spilin."
Here, sure enough, the old trapper came to a pause; and although I felt a deep in terest to know more about the singular being he had described, Prairie-Flower, I saw it would be useless to question him further. The conversation now turned up on trivial affairs, in which neither Huntly nor myself took much interest. We felt wearied and hungry; and so after regaling ourselves on toasted deer meat, without bread, and only a little salt, and having seen our animals driven in and picketed that is, fastened to a stake in the ground, by a long lariat or rope of skin, so that they could feed in a circle \ve threw our selves upon the earth around the fire, and, with no covering but our garments and the broad canopy of heaven, brilliantly studded with thousands on thousands of stars, slept as sweetly and soundly as ever we did in a thick-peopled settlement.,
CHAPTER VII
MORNING SCENE CONVERSATION BOTH I*
LOVE LUDICKOUS MISTAOI OLD FEEir
INGS TOUCHED INTERKt'ETICX.
AT the first tinge of day bicj-k on tho following morning, I sprang to my feet, and rousing Huntly, we stole quietl
