116 



THE ADVENTURES OF 



away when I saw the skill and coolness of the young acro- 

 bat. Certainly, Sumichrast appealed to my own reminis- 

 cences, and offered to lay me a wager that I had climbed 

 many a poplar without the advantage of such superintend- 

 ence as l'Encuerado's. At last the two gymnasts reached 

 the lowest branches, and I breathed more freely. 



" Papa," cried the child," we climbed right to the top, and 

 there found a nest and a squirrel's hiding-place." 



" Have you suddenly gone mad ?" said I, interrupting him 

 and addressing the Indian. 



" Mad !" repeated he, with the most sublime simplicity. 

 "Why?" 



" Couldn't you have chosen a tree that was not so tall ?" 



"Don't you wish Chanito to learn to climb? At all 

 events, the sefiora intrusted him to me." 



" And so you risk his breaking his bones ?" 



" I'm not a child," replied the Indian, proudly, standing 

 upright on a branch. 



" Enough of these gymnastics ! Come down at once ; al- 

 though God knows how you are going to manage it." 



The words were hardly out of my mouth when Lucien 

 reached the ground, suspended by a lasso which l'Encuerado 

 had tied under his arms. The Indian had pulled him up to 

 the lowest branches in the same way. 



" You have not acted sensibly," said I to the Indian ; " we 

 do not begin to learn to ride by mounting a wild horse. 

 Lucien doesn't know yet how to climb high trees." 



" Lucien can climb as well as I can," retorted the culprit ; 

 " he has never eaten an orange out of your garden without 

 clambering up to gather it himself." 



"That's something new to me," said I, looking hard at 

 my son, who blushed. " At any rate, orange-trees are very 

 different in size from cotton-woods, so you risked killing 

 him." 



