“Bah, ye think o’ nothin’ but frogs. I wish I had a dozen ter give ye. For my part I want a good hunk o’ buffler or venison.”
“Le ’Mericans have no taste. Dey know not vat is good. Mon Dieu! in la belle France de frog is de best esteemed meat. Here de boys throw stones at them, an’, sacré, kill them just for fun. Diable! vat I come out here for?” exclaimed the little man.
“Ter find somethin’ az would make yer fortune. So ye’ve told me many a time,” said the guide.
“Just so. You are right, monsieur. Ven I find dat, den I be happy. Every von vill talk about Monsieur Tierney, de great naturalist. Oh, den I vill have my reward for all dis trouble and expense. But vat have we got to eat?”
“Nothin’ az I knows on. The pesky reds didn’t offer to give us a bite, but then we’ve got our firearms an’ an ol’ hunter like me, what’s got his shootin’-iron, desarves to starve if he can’t knock over somethin’ on the plains. If we war on the desert now it would be a different matter. We’ll git somethin’ when we reach the river.”
The two owned very good horses. The guide owned his while the Frenchman’s had been borrowed from a friend in Austin.
The Comanches had come upon them the night before, and had captured them, though not without a vigorous resistance on the part of both of them. The hunter had killed three of the reds before he was captured, and the Frenchman managed to give his enemies several sound cracks with his huge strong umbrella before he was pulled down. He entirely forgot the revolver that he had thrust in his belt to make himself look fierce.
The little man was a curious body, but he had pluck, as the reader will see before this story comes to a close.
The river was at length reached and the two camped.
While the naturalist was building a fire out of some light dry wood, the guide went off to see if he could shoot something.