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d with as much enthusiasm as Suzanne's bolero. This ball was followed by others, and Alix gave me many lessons in the dance, that some weeks later were very valuable in the wilderness towards which we were journeying. VIII. A BAD STORM IN A BAD PLACE. The flatboat continued its course, and some slight signs of civilization began to appear at long intervals. Towards the end of a beautiful day in June, six weeks after our departure from New Orleans, the flatboat stopped at the pass of Lake Chicot.[13] The sun was setting in a belt of gray clouds. Our men fastened their vessel securely and then cast their eyes about them. "Ah!" cried Mario, "I do not like this place; it is inhabited." He pointed to a wretched hut half hidden by the forest. Except two or three little cabins seen in the distance, this was the first habitation that had met our eyes since leaving the Mississippi.[14] A woman showed herself at the door. She was scarcely dressed at all. Her feet were naked, and her tousled hair escaped from a wretched handkerchief that she had thrown upon her head. Hidden in the bushes and behind the trees half a dozen half-nude children gazed at us, ready to fly at the slightest sound. Suddenly two men with guns came out of the woods, but at the sight of the flatboat stood petrified. Mario shook his head. "If it were not so late I would take the boat farther on." [Yet he went hunting with 'Tino and Gordon along the shore, leaving the father of Francoise and Suzanne lying on the deck with sick headache, Joseph fishing in the flatboat's little skiff, and the women and children on the bank, gazed at from a little distance by the sitting figures of the two strange men and the woman. Then the hunters returned, supper was prepared, and both messes ate on shore. Gordon and Mario joining freely in the conversation of the more cultivated group, and making altogether a strange Babel of English, French, Spanish, and Italian.] After supper Joseph and Alix, followed by my sister and me, plunged into the denser part of the woods. "Take care, comrade," we heard Mario say; "don't go far." The last rays of the sun were in the treetops. There were flowers everywhere. Alix ran here and there, all enthusiasm. Presently Suzanne uttered a cry and recoiled with affright from a thicket of blackberries. In an instant Joseph was at her side; but she laughed aloud, returned to the assault, and drew by force from the bushes a
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