“There I’m dead against you, and clearly with the trapper,” interrupted Paul Hover. “The man who denies that buffaloe beef is good, should scorn to eat it!”[[13]]
The Doctor, whose observation of the bee-hunter had hitherto been exceedingly cursory, stared at the new speaker with a look which denoted something like recognition.
“The principal characteristics of your countenance, friend,” he said, “are familiar; either you, or some other specimen of your class, is known to me.”
“I am the man you met in the woods east of the big river, and whom you tried to persuade to line a yellow hornet to his nest: as if my eye was not too true to mistake any other animal for a honey-bee, in a clear day! We tarried together a week, as you may remember; you at your toads and lizards, and I at my high-holes and hollow trees: and a good job we made of it between us! I filled my tubs with the sweetest honey I ever sent to the settlements, besides housing a dozen hives; and your bag was near bursting with a crawling museum. I never was bold enough to put the question to your face, stranger, but I reckon you are a keeper of curiosities?”[[14]]
“Ay! that is another of their wanton wickednesses!” exclaimed the trapper. “They slay the buck, and the moose, and the wild cat, and all the beasts that range the woods, and stuffing them with worthless rags, and placing eyes of glass into their heads, they set them up to be stared at, and call them the creatur’s of the Lord; as if any mortal effigy could equal the works of his hand!”
“I know you well,” returned the Doctor, on whom the plaint of the old man produced no visible impression. “I know you,” offering his hand cordially to Paul; “it was a prolific week, as my herbal and catalogues shall one day prove. Ay, I remember you well, young man. You are of the class, mammalia; order, primates; genus, homo; species, Kentucky.” Pausing to smile at his own humour, the naturalist proceeded. “Since our separation, I have journeyed far, having entered into a compactum or agreement with a certain man named Ishmael—”
“Bush!” interrupted the impatient and reckless Paul. “By the Lord, trapper, this is the very blood-letter that Ellen told me of!”
“Then Nelly has not done me credit for what I trust I deserve,” returned the single-minded Doctor, “for I am not of the phlebotomising school at all; greatly preferring the practice which purifies the blood instead of abstracting it.”
“It was a blunder of mine, good stranger; the girl called you a skilful man.”
“Therein she may have exceeded my merits,” Dr. Battius continued, bowing with sufficient meekness. “But Ellen is a good, and a kind, and a spirited girl, too. A kind and a sweet girl I have ever found Nell Wade to be!”