"No," said he, "I shall not do so."
"What! you will not do so?" the hunter exclaimed, in great surprise.
"Certainly no, I will not do so, Loyal Heart. Compared with you, who are so brave and so intelligent, I am but little worth, I know; but if I have only one good quality, nothing can deprive me of it, and that quality is my devotedness to you."
"I know it, my friend; you love me like a brother."
"And you would have me leave you, as they say in my country beyond the great lakes, to go cheerfully into the jaws of the wolf; and yet my comparison is humiliating for the wolf, for the Indians are a thousand times more ferocious! No, I repeat, I will not do that; it would be a wicked action, and if any harm happened to you, I should never forgive myself."
"Explain yourself, Belhumeur," said Loyal Heart, with a little impatience; "upon my honour I cannot possibly understand you."
"Oh! that will be easy enough," the Canadian answered; "if I am not very clever, and am not an able speaker, I have good common sense, and can see my way clearly when those I love are concerned; and I love nobody better than you, now my poor father is dead."
"Speak then, my friend," said Loyal Heart, "and pardon the little ill-humour I could not repress."
Belhumeur reflected for a few seconds, and then continued:—
"You know," he said, "that the greatest enemies we have in the prairies are the Comanches; by an inexplicable fatality, whenever we have had a struggle to maintain, it has been against them, and never have they been able to boast of the smallest advantage over us; hence has arisen between them and us an implacable hatred, a hatred which has latterly been increased by our quarrel with Eagle Head, whose arm you had the good chance, or rather the ill chance, of breaking, when it would have been so easy for you to have broken his head; a joke which I am convinced the chief has taken in very bad part, and will never forgive you. Besides, I must confess that in his place I should entertain exactly the same sentiments; I bear him no malice on that account."