Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/60

 Perhaps the lake wasn't sixty miles long. Perhaps the water was not scalding hot, just warm. Who knows? And yet when I was very young, even before the Missouris were exterminated, when the Otoes and Kansas tribes were something besides names, I heard strange stories from the up-river country—like fairy stories. But yet so wonderful a country must have wonderful secrets. Even in the few years left to me and my knives I believe I could uncover some strange things up there. Only the good God knows it all. And if I did they would call me, 'Papa Clair, the old liar.'"

"Not to your face, Papa," warmly declared Lander. "And I haven't thanked you yet for stopping that fellow from braining me. My head was asleep. I saw him lift the bottle over me and it seemed I was dreaming and couldn't move a peg. If some one had touched me, just to start me—but no one did. So, old friend, I owe you a life."

"Take good care of it. Keep it clean for the little friend. Wait!"

He beckoned to a boy and gave an order. The boy brought a bottle of French wine which Papa Clair lovingly decanted, and then proposed: