"He! he!" he said to the doctor, "what are you doing there, my good sir? Seeing the grass moved about so, I thought there was a doe in the thicket, and, devil take me! if I was not on the point of sending a bullet at you."
"The deuce!" the doctor cried, eyeing him with an expression of terror, "you should be careful; do you know you might have killed me?"
"Well, I might," the trapper replied, laughing; "but don't be afraid! I perceived my error in time."
"God be praised!"
And the doctor, who had just perceived a rare plant stooped eagerly to seize it.
"Then you won't tell me what you are doing?" the hunter continued.
"Why, can't you see, my friend?"
"Who, I? Yes; I see you are amusing yourself with pulling up the weeds of the prairie, that is all; and I should like to know what for?"
"Oh! ignorance!" the savant murmured, and then added aloud with that tone of doctorial condescension peculiar to the disciples of Æsculapius: "my friend, I am gathering simples, which I collect, in order to classify them in my herbal; the flora of these prairies is magnificent; I am convinced that I have discovered at least three new species of the Chirostemon pentadactylon, of which the genus belongs to the Flora Mexicana."
"Ah!" said the hunter, staring with all his eyes, and making strong efforts to refrain from laughing in the doctor's face. "You think you have really found three new species of—"