Unlike the other spectators of the important conference, these
individuals were engaged in a discourse that for them contained an
interest of its own.
"Captain," said the bee-hunter with an expression of comical concern,
that no misfortune could depress in one of his buoyant feelings, "do
you really find that accursed strap of untanned leather cutting into
your shoulder, or is it only the tickling in my own arm that I feel?"
"When the spirit suffers so deeply, the body is insensible to pain,"
returned the more refined, though scarcely so spirited Middleton;
"would to Heaven that some of my trusty artillerists might fall upon
this accursed encampment!"
"You might as well wish that these Teton lodges were so many hives of
hornets, and that the insects would come forth and battle with yonder
tribe of half naked savages." Then, chuckling with his own conceit,
the bee-hunter turned away from his companion, and sought a momentary
relief from his misery, by imagining that so wild an idea might be
realised, and fancying the manner, in which the attack would upset
even the well established patience of an Indian.
Pages:
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597