"Come, stop that, Bright-eye; I always suspected you of having a weakness for the Redskins."
"How can you say that, when I am their obstinate enemy, and have been fighting them for the last forty years?"
"That is the very reason that makes you defend them."
"How so?" the hunter said, astonished at this conclusion, which he was far from expecting.
"For a very simple reason. No one likes to contend with enemies unworthy of him, and it is quite natural you should try to elevate those against whom you have been fighting for forty years."
The hunter shook his head.
"Mr. Edward," he said, with a thoughtful air, "the Redskins are people whom it takes many a long year to know. They possess at once the craft of the opossum, the prudence of the serpent, and the courage of the cougar. A few years hence you will not despise them as you do now."
"My good fellow," the Count objected, "I hope I shall have left the prairies within a year. I am yearning for a civilized life. I want Paris, with its opera and balls. No, no; the desert does not suit me."
The hunter shook his head a second time. Then he continued, with a mournful accent, which struck the young man, and, as if rather speaking to himself, than replying to the Count's remarks—
"Yes, yes; that is the way with Europeans: when they arrive on the prairies, they regret civilized life, and the desert is only gradually appreciated; but when a man has breathed the odours of the savannah, when during long nights he has listened to the rustling of the wind in the trees, and the howling of the wild beasts in the virgin forests—when he has admired that proud landscape which owes nothing to art, where the hand of God is imprinted at each step in ineffaceable characters: when he has gazed on the glorious scenes that rise in succession before him—then he begins by degrees to love this unknown world, so full of mysteries and strange incidents; his eyes are opened to the truth, and he repudiates the falsehoods of civilization. At such a a moment he experiences emotions full of secret charms, and recognizing no other master save that God, in whose presence he feels himself so small, he forgets everything to lead a nomadic life, and remains in the desert, because there alone he feels free, happy—a man, in a word! Ah, sir, whatever you may say, whatever you may do, the desert now holds you: you have tasted its joys and its griefs; it will not allow you to depart so easily—you will not see France again so speedily—the desert will retain you in spite of yourself."