Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/93

 garments are so worn no one can tell what they are made of. To come back and say: 'I have seen life. I have lived and fought my way among men and savages.' Ah, that is the speech that makes m'm'selle very proud. A woman likes to discover things in the man she loves, not to know him as we know the way from here to Petite Côte. Her love is like an old mountain man—always hungry for something new."

"Eighteen months!" muttered Lander, more to himself than to Papa Clair.

"The months will pass. Come snow, go snow. What profit could you squeeze out of them if you stayed here and worked in a store?

"Life is a bag of months. Fortune is what a man squeezes out of them. To get his satisfy he must squeeze each month very hard. If he can't get love he gets gold. If neither love nor gold he can at least get red-blooded life. Fortune may play tricks with him; m'm'selle may turn from him, but life, real and burning, can always be his."

"Yes, yes; of course," mumbled Lander, in a poor mood for the comforts of philosophy. "Now you must leave me. Deliver the letter to Susette in the morning. I must hurry to Bridger's store and get the mule."