"Chirostemon pentadactylon, my friend," said the doctor, patronizingly.
"Ah! bah!"
"At least; perhaps there may be a fourth!"
"Oh! oh! there is some use in it, then?"
"Some use in it, indeed!" the doctor cried, much scandalized.
"Well, don't be angry, I know nothing about it."
"That is true!" said the savant, softened by the tone of Black Elk; "You cannot comprehend the importance of these labours, which advance science at an immense speed."
"Well, only to think! And it was only for the purpose of pulling up herbs in this manner that you came into the prairie?"
"For nothing else."
Black Elk looked at him with the admiration created by the sight of an inexplicable phenomenon; the hunter could not succeed in comprehending how a sensible man should resolve willingly to endure a life of privation and perils for the, to him, unintelligible object of pulling up useless plants; therefore he soon came to a conviction that he must be mad. He cast upon him a look of commiseration; shaking his head, and shouldering his rifle, he prepared to go on his way.