182 IN THE OLD WEST 



ality and civilization. He thought, too, how 

 changed in manners and appearance he now must 

 be, and could not believe that he would again 

 find favor 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 doraiant. Thus it was that he came to for- 

 get 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 mountaineer, and — sin unpardonable in hunter 

 law — still possessed, 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 episodes, he 

 treated his dusky sposas with all the considera- 

 tion the sex could possibly demand from hand of 

 man. No squaw of his ever humped shoulder to 

 receive a castigatory and martial " lodge-poling " 

 for offense domestic ; but often has his helpmate 

 blushed to see her pale-face lord and master de- 



