"It is not usual to take them."
"Indeed, during the forty years I have traversed the desert in every direction, this is only the second occasion of my indulging in a night walk."
"Nonsense!"
"It is a fact; the first time deserves mentioning."
"How so?" Don Miguel asked absently.
"The circumstances were almost similar; I wanted to save a young girl, who had been carried off by the Indians. It was in 1835. I was then in the service of the Fur Company. The Blackfoot Indians, to avenge a trick played on them by a scamp of an employé, hit on nothing better than surprising Mackenzie fort; then—"
"Listen!" Don Miguel said, seizing his arm. "Do you hear nothing?"
The Canadian, so suddenly interrupted in his story, which he believed this time he should really finish, did not, however, display any ill temper, for he was accustomed to such mishaps; he stopped, lay down on the ground, and listened attentively for two or three minutes, with the most sustained attention, and then rose, shaking his head contemptuously. "They are coyotes sharing a deer," he said.
"You are certain of it?"
"You will soon hear them give tongue." In fact, the hunter had scarce finished speaking ere the repeated barking of the coyotes could be heard a short distance off.