Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/51

 e boat, is

no common person. He is surely a prince in dis guise; may be he is the son of a president or a banker, wild and free, up here in the mountains for pleasure. Then I saw from the dark and classic face that he was neither an American, German, nor Irish man, and vaguely I associated him with Italian princes dethroned, or even a king of France in exile. He was surely splendid, superb, standing there in the morning sun, in his gay attire, by the swift and shining river, smiling, tapping the sand in an absent- minded sort of way with his boot. A prince ! truly nothing less than a prince ! The man turned and smiled good-naturedly, as I dismounted, tapped the sand with his top-boot, gently whistled the old air of " 49," but did not speak.

This man was attired something after the Mexican style of dress, with a wealth of black hair on his shoulders, a cloak on his arm, and a pistol in his belt.

The boatman came and took us in his narrow little flat, and set his oars for the other side. A sort of Yankee sailor was this boatman, of a very low sort too; blown up from the sea as sea-gulls are sometimes found blown out even in the heart of the plains: a suspicious-looking, sallow, solemn- faced, bald-headed man in gum-boots, duck-breeches, blue shirt with the front all open, showing his hairy bosom, and with a lariat tied about his waist in the form of a sash.

The tall, fine -looking man stepped ashore