“I breakfasted on a little bird about the size of a hen’s egg. I know not what it is named, but it was excellently flavoured. I relished it much.”
On hearing this, Gibault pressed his hand on his stomach, as if the mere thought of such a delicately minute breakfast caused him pain in that region.
“I say, stranger,” broke in Waller, in a tone of voice that seemed to imply that he was determined to be at the bottom of this mystery, and would stand it no longer—“wot’s your name?”
“Theodore Bertram,” replied the artist without hesitation.
“Where do you come from?”
“From England.”
“Where air you a-goin’ to?”
“To the Rocky Mountains.”
“Wot for to do there?”
“You are inquisitive, friend,” said Bertram, smiling; “but I have no reason for concealing my object in travelling here—it is to sketch, and shoot, and take notes, and witness the works of the Almighty in the wilderness. I hold it to be an object worthy the ambition of a great man to act the part of pioneer to the missionary and the merchant in nature’s wildest and most inaccessible regions; and although I pretend not to greatness, I endeavour, humbly, to do what I can.”