"Nay, they may
conceive you a remarkable subject for their kindness, and for that
matter marry you to five or six. I have known, in my days, favoured
chiefs who had numberless wives."
"But why should they meditate this vengeance?" demanded the Doctor,
whose hair began to rise, as if each fibre was possessed of
sensibility; "what evil have I done?"
"It is the fashion of their kindness. When they come to learn that you
are a great medicine, they will adopt you in the tribe, and some
mighty chief will give you his name, and perhaps his daughter, or it
may be a wife or two of his own, who have dwelt long in his lodge, and
of whose value he is a judge by experience."
"The Governor and Founder of natural harmony protect me!" ejaculated
the Doctor. "I have no affinity to a single consort, much less to
duplicates and triplicates of the class! I shall certainly essay a
flight from their abodes before I mingle in so violent a conjunction."
"There is reason in your words; but why not attempt the race you speak
of now?"
The naturalist looked fearfully around, as if he had an inclination to
make an instant exhibition of his desperate intention; but the dusky
figures, who were riding on every side of him, seemed suddenly tripled
in number, and the darkness, that was already thickening on the
prairie, appeared in his eyes to possess the glare of high noon.
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