We think of the swamps, the forests, the leagues of sand and the swift rivers which will hinder our progress." "I hardly imagine," she murmured softly, "that Captain de Croix is guilty of wasting precious time in reflection upon aught so trivial this morning.

He has been conversing with me upon the proper cut of his waistcoat, and I am sure he is too deeply engrossed in that subject to give heed to other things." I glanced at him and smiled as my heart glowed to her gentle sarcasm, for surely never did a more incongruous figure take saddle on a western trail.

By what code of fashion he may have dressed, I know not; but from his slender-pointed bronze shoes to his beribboned hat he was still the dandy of the boulevards, his dark mustaches curled upward till their tips nearly touched his ears, and a delicately carved riding-whip swinging idly at his wrist.

He seemed to have already exhausted his powers of conversation, for he remained oblivious of our presence, fumbling with one yellow-gloved hand in the recesses of a saddle-bag.
"By Saint Denis, Sam!" he exclaimed, angrily, to his black satellite, "I can find nothing of the powder-puff, or the bag of essence! _Parbleu_! if they have been left behind you will go back after them, though every Indian in this Illinois country stand between.

Come, you imp of darkness, know you aught of these ?" "Dey am wid de pack-hoss, Massa de Croix," was the oily answer.