“An’ d’ye see yerself?”
“Wall, I does,” replied Waller, looking complacently down at his huge limbs.
“Good; then d’ye see the ground over there?” continued Bounce, pointing with his pipe to the Rocky Mountains.
Waller nodded.
“Now then,” said Bounce, in those deep earnest tones with which men usually attempt to probe the marrow of some desperately knotty question; “now, then, when Mr Bertram’s a drawin’ of, an’ tries to look at the ground over there, you an’ me comes before the ground, d’ye see; an’ so we’re, as ye may say, before-grounds. But men wot studies human natur’ an’ langwidges, d’ye see, comes for to know that words is always gittin’ onnecessary bits chopped off ’em—sometimes at one end, sometimes at t’other. So they tuck off the B, d’ye see, an’ made it foreground, and that’s how we come to be foregrounds.”
“Oh!” said Waller, with the vacant air of a man who feels himself as wise at the termination as he was at the beginning of an explanation.
“Yes,” resumed Bounce, “that’s how it is. I must confess, for my part, that I don’t ’xactly see the advantage o’ us in that light. I should ha’ thought it would ha’ bin better to make us stand to one side, d’ye see, and let him see how the land lies. But there’s no accountin’ for taste in this wurld—I’ve obsarved that, iver since I was three fut two.”
Having delivered himself of this graphic exposition of an abstruse subject, Bounce relapsed into silence, and the whole party continued for some minutes in a profound reverie. From this felicitous condition they were awakened by the sudden appearance of Black Gibault, who darted out of the poplar bluff and made towards them at the top of his speed. He uttered no cry, but, on coming near enough to permit of his features being clearly seen, it was observed that his eyes were eagerly wide open, and that his mouth was engaged in the formation of words. A second or two more, and he was near enough to be heard uttering the word “buffaloes” in a hoarse whisper.
“Ho! boy, wot is’t?” cried Bounce in an equally hoarse whisper.
“Ba—buffaloes, hah! buffaloes,” cried Gibault, panting violently as he came up; “Where be de leetle gun? He! Monsieur Bertram, out vid it.”