“A better man, Pathfinder, would be hard to find,” returned the father. “As for town usages, they are soon forgotten in the freedom of the forest, and Mabel has just spirit enough to dwell on a frontier. I've not planned this marriage, my friend, without thinking it over, as a general does his campaign. At first, I thought of bringing you into the regiment, that you might succeed me when I retire, which must be sooner or later; but on reflection, Pathfinder, I think you are scarcely fitted for the office. Still, if not a soldier in all the meanings of the word, you are a soldier in its best meaning, and I know that you have the good-will of every officer in the corps. As long as I live, Mabel can dwell with me, and you will always have a home when you return from your scoutings and marches.”
“This is very pleasant to think of, Sergeant, if the girl can only come into our wishes with good-will. But, ah's me! It does not seem that one like myself can ever be agreeable in her handsome eyes. If I were younger, and more comely, now, as Jasper Western is, for instance, there might be a chance—yes, then, indeed, there might be some chance.”
“That for Jasper Eau-douce, and every younker of them in or about the fort!” returned the Sergeant, snapping his fingers. “If not actually a younger, you are a younger-looking, ay, and a better-looking man than the Scud's master—”
“Anan?” said Pathfinder, looking up at his companion with an expression of doubt, as if he did not understand his meaning.
“I say if not actually younger in days and years, you look more hardy and like whipcord than Jasper, or any of them; and there will be more of you, thirty years hence, than of all of them put together. A good conscience will keep one like you a mere boy all his life.”
“Jasper has as clear a conscience as any youth I know, Sergeant, and is as likely to wear on that account as any in the colony.”
“Then you are my friend,” squeezing the other's hand, “my tried, sworn, and constant friend.”
“Yes, we have been friends, Sergeant, near twenty years before Mabel was born.”
“True enough; before Mabel was born, we were well-tried friends; and the hussy would never dream of refusing to marry a man who was her father's friend before she was born.”
“We don't know, Sergeant, we don't know. Like loves like. The young prefer the young for companions, and the old the old.”