102 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



and many a choice fur he had carefully laid by, intended 

 as a present for Mary Brand ; and many a gdge dl amour 

 of cunning shape and device, worked in stained quills of 

 porcupine and bright -coloured beads the handiwork of 

 nimble-fingered squaws he had packed in his " possible " 

 sack for the same destination, hoping a time would come 

 when he might lay them at her feet. 



Year after year wore on, however, and still found him, 

 with traps and rifle, following his perilous avocation ; and 

 each succeeding one saw him more and more wedded to the 

 wild mountain-life. He was conscious how unfitted he had 

 become again to enter the galling harness of conventionality 

 and civilisation. He thought, too, how changed in man- 

 ners and appearance he now must be, and could not believe 

 that he would again find favour in the eyes of his quondam 

 love, who, he judged, had long since forgotten him ; and 

 inexperienced as he was in such matters, yet he knew 

 enough of womankind to feel assured that time and absence 

 had long since done the work, if even the natural fickleness 

 of woman's nature had lain dormant. Thus it was that he 

 came to forget Mary Brand, but still remembered the all- 

 absorbing feeling she had once created in his breast, the 

 shadow of which still remained, and often took form and 

 feature in the smoke-wreaths of his solitary camp-fire. 



If truth be told, La Bonte had his failings as a moun- 

 taineer, and sin unpardonable in hunter law still pos- 

 sessed, in holes and corners of his breast seldom explored 

 by his inward eye, much of the leaven of kindly human 

 nature, which now and again involuntarily peeped out, as 

 greatly to the contempt of his comrade trappers as it was 

 blushingly repressed by the mountaineer himself. Thus, 

 in his various matrimonial episqdes, he treated his dusky 

 sposas with all the consideration the sex could possibly 

 demand from hand of man. No squaw of his ever humped 

 shoulder to receive a castigatory and marital " lodge-pol- 

 ing" for offence domestic ; but often has his helpmate 

 blushed to see her pale-face lord and master devote himself 

 to the feminine labour of packing huge piles of firewood on 

 his back, felling trees, butchering unwieldy buffalo all 



