Page:The Oregon Trail by Parkman.djvu/384

358 "Whar are you from, and what's your business?"

The captain of one of the companies was among our visitors, drawn by the same curiosity that had attracted his men. Unless their faces belied them, not a few in the crowd might with great advantage have changed places with their commander.

"Well, men," said he, lazily rising from the ground where he had been lounging, "it's getting late, I reckon we had better be moving."

"I shan't start yet anyhow," said one fellow, who was lying half asleep with his head resting on his arm.

"Don't be in a hurry, captain," added the lieutenant.

"Well, have it your own way, we'll wait a while longer," replied the obsequious commander.

At length however our visitors went straggling away as they had come, and we, to our great relief, were left alone again.

No one was more relieved than Deslauriers by the departure of the volunteers; for dinner was getting colder every moment. He spread a well-whitened buffalo-hide upon the grass, placed in the middle the juicy hump of a fat cow, ranged around it the tin plates and cups, and then acquainted us that all was ready. Tête Rouge, with his usual alacrity on such occasions, was the first to take his seat. In his former capacity of steamboat clerk, he had learned to prefix the honorary Mister to everybody's name, whether of high or low degree; so Jim Gurney was Mr. Gurney, Henry was Mr. Henry, and even Deslauriers, for the first time in his life, heard himself addressed as Mr. Deslauriers. This did not prevent his conceiving a violent enmity against Tête Rouge, who, in his futile though praiseworthy attempts to make himself useful, used always to intermeddle with cooking the dinners. Deslauriers's disposition knew no medium between smiles