The Comanche Sachem nodded his head in assent, and they set out. They had been walking for about half an hour, when Curumilla, who was in front, stopped and uttered a suppressed cry. The hunters raised their heads, and perceived, a few yards above them, an enormous black mass, carelessly swaying about.
"Well," Valentine said, "what is that?"
"A bear," Curumilla replied.
"Indeed!" said Don Pablo; "it is a splendid black bear."
"Let us give him a bullet," Don Miguel remarked.
"Do not fire, for Heaven's sake!" Don Pablo exclaimed eagerly, "it would give an alarm and warn the fellows we are looking for of the spot where we are."
"Still, I should like to collar it," Valentine observed, "were it only for its fur."
"No," Unicorn peremptorily said, who had hitherto been silent, "bears are the cousins of my family."
"In that case it is different," said the hunter, concealing with difficulty an ironical smile.
The prairie Indians, as we think we have said before, are excessively superstitious. Among other articles of faith, they believe they spring from certain animals, which they treat as relatives, and for which they profess a profound respect, which does not prevent them, however, from killing them occasionally, as, for instance, when they are pressed by hunger, as frequently happens; but we must do the Indians the justice of saying, that they never proceed to such extremities with their relatives without asking their pardon a thousand times, and first explaining to them that hunger alone compelled them to have recourse to this extreme measure to support life.