y cure. I've know'd fellers a'most die o' homesickness, an' I'm told
they _do_ go under altogether sometimes."

"Go onder!" exclaimed Henri; "oui, I vas all but die myself ven I fust
try to git away from hom'. If I have not git away, I not be here
to-day."

Henri's idea of homesickness was so totally opposed to theirs, that his
comrades only laughed, and refrained from attempting to set him right.

"The fust time I was took bad with it wos in a country somethin' like
that," said Joe, pointing to the wide stretch of undulating prairie,
dotted with clusters of trees and wandering streamlets, that lay before
them; "I had bin out about two months, an wos makin' a good thing of it,
for game wos plenty, when I began to think somehow more than usual o'
home. My mother wos alive then."

Joe's voice sank to a deep, solemn tone as he said this, and for a few
minutes he rode on in silence.

"Well, it grew worse and worse, I dreamed o' home all night, an' thought
of it all day, till I began to shoot bad, an' my comrades wos gittin'
tired o' me; so says I to them one night, says I, `I give out, lads,
I'll make tracks for the settlement to-morrow.' They tried to laugh me
out of it at first, but it was no go, so I packed up, bid them good-day,
an' sot off alone on a trip o' five hundred miles. The very first mile
o' the way back I began to mend, and before two days I wos all right
again."

Joe was interrupted at this point by the sudden appearance of a solitary
horseman on the brow of an eminence not half a mile distant. The three
friends instantly drove their pack-horses behind a clump of trees, but
not in time to escape the vigilant eye of the Red-man, who uttered a
loud shout, which brought up a band of his comrades at full gallop.

"Remember, Henri," cried Joe Blunt, "our errand is one of _peace_."

The caution was needed, for in the confusion of the moment Henri was
making preparation to sell his life as dearly as possible. Before
another word could be uttered, they were surrounded by a troop of about
twenty yelling Blackfeet Indians. They were, fortunately, not a
war-party, and, still more fortunately, they were peaceably disposed,
and listened to the preliminary address of Joe Blunt with exemplary
patience; after which the two parties encamped on the spot, the
council-fire was lighted, and every preparation made for a long palaver.

We will not trouble the reader with the details of what was said on this
occas