“The devil she is! That will produce a stir in the fort; though I'm not sorry to hear it either, for, to be frank with you, Sergeant, I'm no great admirer of unequal matches.”
“I think with your honor, and have no desire to see my daughter an officer's lady. If she can get as high as her mother was before her, it ought to satisfy any reasonable woman.”
“And may I ask, Sergeant, who is the lucky man that you intend to call son-in-law?”
“The Pathfinder, your honor.”
“Pathfinder!”
“The same, Major Duncan; and in naming him to you, I give you his whole history. No one is better known on this frontier than my honest, brave, true-hearted friend.”
“All that is true enough; but is he, after all, the sort of person to make a girl of twenty happy?”
“Why not, your honor? The man is at the head of his calling. There is no other guide or scout connected with the army who has half the reputation of Pathfinder, or who deserves to have it half as well.”
“Very true, Sergeant; but is the reputation of a scout exactly the sort of renown to captivate a girl's fancy?”
“Talking of girls' fancies, sir, is in my humble opinion much like talking of a recruit's judgment. If we were to take the movements of the awkward squad, sir, as a guide, we should never form a decent line in battalion, Major Duncan.”