Three magnificent horses, full of fire and blood, hobbled a few paces from the hunters, were carelessly browsing on the climbing peas and young tree shoots.
We have omitted to mention two peculiarities of the Count. The first was, he always carried in his right eye a gold eyeglass, fastened round his neck by means of a black ribbon; the second, that he continually wore kid gloves, which we confess, greatly to his annoyance, had now grown very dirty and torn.
And now, by what strange combination of chance were these three men, so differing in birth, habits, and education, met together some five or six hundred leagues from any civilized abode, on the banks of a river, if not unknown, at any rate hitherto unexplored, seated amicably on the grass, and sharing a breakfast which was more than frugal? We can explain this in a few words to the reader by cursorily describing a scene that occurred in the prairie about six months prior to the beginning of our narrative.
Bright-eye was a determined man, who, with the exception of the time he served the Hudson's Bay Company, had always hunted and trapped alone, despising the Indians too much to fear them, and finding in braving them that delight which the courageous man experiences, when, alone and beneath the eye of Heaven, he struggles, confiding in his own resources, against a terrible and unknown danger. The Indians knew and feared him for many a long year. Many times they had come into collision with him, and they had nearly always been compelled to retreat, leaving several of their men on the field. Hence they had sworn against the hunter one of those hearty Indian hatreds which nothing can satiate save the punishment of the man who is the object of it.
But as they knew with what sort of man they had to deal, and did not care to increase the number of the victims he had already sacrificed, they resolved to await, with the peculiar patience characteristic of their race, the propitious moment for seizing their foe, and till then confine themselves to carefully watching all his movements, so as not to lose the favourable opportunity when it presented itself.
Bright-eye at this moment was hunting on the banks of the Missouri. Knowing himself watched, and instinctively suspecting a trap, he took all the precautions suggested to him by his inventive mind and the deep knowledge he possessed of Indian tricks. One day, while exploring the banks of the river, he fancied he noticed, a slight distance ahead of him, an almost imperceptible movement in the thick brushwood. He stopped, lay down, and began crawling gently in the direction of the thicket. Suddenly the forest seemed agitated to its most unexplored depths, A swarm of Indians rose from the earth, leaped from the trees, or rushed from behind rocks; the hunter, literally buried beneath the mass of his enemies, was reduced to a state of powerlessness, before he could even make an attempt to defend himself.
Bright-eye was disarmed in a twinkling; then a chief walked up to him, and holding out his hand, said coldly—
"Let my brother rise; the Redskin warriors are waiting for him."
"Good, good," the hunter growled; "all is not over yet, Indian, and I shall have my revenge."
The chief smiled.