er-backed mirror propped
against a tree-butt in his front, while the obsequious darkey was
deliberately combing out his long hair and fashioning it anew. The
Frenchman glanced up at me with a welcoming smile of rare good-humor.

"Ah, sober-face! and have you at last mustered courage to break away
from the commander of this most notable company?" he cried mockingly.
"'T is passing strange he does not chain you to his saddle! By Saint
Guise! 'twould indeed be the only way in which so dull a cavalier would
ever hold me loyal to his whims. Friend Wayland, I scarce thought you
would ever thus honor me again; and yet, 't is true, I have had an
ambition within my heart ever since we first met. 'T is to cause you
to fling aside those rough habiliments of the wilderness, and attire
yourself in garments more becoming civilized man. Would that I might
induce you, even now, to permit Sam to rearrange those heavy blond
locks _a la Pompadour_. Bless me! but it would make a new man of you."

"Such is not at all my desire, Monsieur," I answered, civilly. "I came
now merely to learn if you would walk with me through these dunes of
sand before the daylight fades."

He looked out, idly enough, across that dreary expanse of desolation,
and shrugged his shoulders.

"Use the other powder, Sam, the lighter colored," he murmured
languidly, as if the sight had wearied him; "and mind you drop not so
much as a pinch upon the waistcoat."

Then he lifted his eyes inquiringly to mine.

"For what?" he asked.

"To look forth upon the Great Lake. Captain Wells tells me 't is but a
brief and safe walk from here to the shore-line."

"The lake?--water?" and the expression upon his face made me smile.
"_Mon Dieu_, man! have you become crazed by the hard march? What have
I ever said in our brief intercourse that could cause you to conceive I
care greatly for that? If it were only wine, now!"

"You have no desire to go with me, then?"

"Lay out the red tie, Sam; no, the one with the white spots in it, and
the small curling-iron. No, Monsieur; what you ask is impossible. I
travel to the west for higher purpose than to gaze upon a heaving waste
of water. _Sacre_! did I not have a full hundred days of such pleasure
when first I left France? My poor stomach has not fairly settled yet
from its fierce churning. Know ye not, Master Wayland, that we hope to
be at this Fort Dearborn upon the morrow, and 't is there I meet again
the fair Toi