It was a shout of joy, followed by a wild laugh, like the laugh of a maniac! Francois and Lucien looked up in affright--thinking that something disagreeable had happened--for they could not understand why Basil should be laughing so loudly at such a time, and under such gloomy circumstances.
As they looked at him he still continued to laugh, waving the hatchet around his head as if in triumph.
"Come here, brothers!" shouted he; "come here! Ha! ha! ha! Here's a supper for three hungry individuals! Ha! ha! ha! What shallow fellows we are, to be sure! Why, we are as stupid as the donkey that preferred eating the hay with the bread and butter beside him.

Look here! and here! and there! There's a supper for you.

Ha! ha! ha!" Lucien and Francois had now arrived upon the ground; and seeing Basil point to the great joints of the buffalo, and turn them over and over, at once understood the cause of his mirth.

_These joints were full of marrow_! "Pounds of it," continued Basil; "the very tit-bits of the buffalo-- enough to make suppers for a dozen of us; and yet we were going to sleep supperless, or the next thing to it--going to starve in the midst of plenty! And we have been travelling among such treasures for three days past! Why, we deserve to starve for being so simple.

But come, brothers! help me to carry these great joints to the fire--I'll show you how to cook a supper." There are eight marrow-bones in the buffalo, containing several pounds of this substance.