210 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
starving stomach destroys jokes. Courtesies suitable 
were exchanged, and the preliminaries for a hearty 
meal agreed upon, the basis of which was to be, buffalo 
steaks. 
A real buffalo steak! eaten in the very grounds 
which the animal inhabits! What romance! what a 
diploma of a sportsman’s enterprise ! 
Whatever might have been my disappointment in 
the hunters, I knew that meat was meat, and that the 
immutable laws of nature would not fail, though my 
ideas of the romantic in men were entirely disappointed. 
A promise thas our wants should soon be supplied, 
brought us to that unpleasant time, in every-day life, 
which prefaces an expected and wished-for meal. 
Seated, like barbarians, upon the floor, myself and 
companions enjoyed the pleasing mental operation of 
calculating how little the frontier family we were visit- 
ing were worth, for any moral quality; and the physical 
exercise of keeping off, as much as possible, thousands 
of fleas, and other noxious insects, that infested the dust 
in which we sat. 
While thus disposed of, the “hunters” were busy 
in various ways about the premises, and received from 
us the elegant names of ‘‘ Bags” and “‘ Breeches,” from 
some fancied or real difference in their inexpressibles.. 
‘“‘ Breeches,” who was evidently the business man, came 
near where we were sitting, and threw down upon the 
ground, what appeared, at a superficial glance, to be an 
