ked out in vain hope of discovering some
token of fair weather. The clouds, in lead-colored volumes, rested upon
the dismal verge of the prairie, or hung sluggishly overhead, while the
earth wore an aspect no more attractive than the heavens, exhibiting
nothing but pools of water, grass beaten down, and mud well trampled by
our mules and horses. Our companions' tent, with an air of forlorn
and passive misery, and their wagons in like manner, drenched and
woe-begone, stood not far off. The captain was just returning from his
morning's inspection of the horses. He stalked through the mist and
rain, with his plaid around his shoulders; his little pipe, dingy as an
antiquarian relic, projecting from beneath his mustache, and his brother
Jack at his heels.

"Good-morning, captain."

"Good-morning to your honors," said the captain, affecting the Hibernian
accent; but at that instant, as he stooped to enter the tent, he tripped
upon the cords at the entrance, and pitched forward against the guns
which were strapped around the pole in the center.

"You are nice men, you are!" said he, after an ejaculation not necessary
to be recorded, "to set a man-trap before your door every morning to
catch your visitors."

Then he sat down upon Henry Chatillon's saddle. We tossed a piece of
buffalo robe to Jack, who was looking about in some embarrassment. He
spread it on the ground, and took his seat, with a stolid countenance,
at his brother's side.

"Exhilarating weather, captain!"

"Oh, delightful, delightful!" replied the captain. "I knew it would be
so; so much for starting yesterday at noon! I knew how it would turn
out; and I said so at the time."

"You said just the contrary to us. We were in no hurry, and only moved
because you insisted on it."

"Gentlemen," said the captain, taking his pipe from his mouth with an
air of extreme gravity, "it was no plan of mine. There is a man among us
who is determined to have everything his own way. You may express your
opinion; but don't expect him to listen. You may be as reasonable as
you like: oh, it all goes for nothing! That man is resolved to rule the
roost and he'll set his face against any plan that he didn't think of
himself."

The captain puffed for a while at his pipe, as if meditating upon his
grievances; then he began again:

"For twenty years I have been in the British army; and in all that time
I never had half so much dissension, and quarreling, and nonsense, as
sin