Part 7 (2/2)
”Try another,” said March again.
The artist hesitated.
”You'd better; it's a fat un.”
”N-no. No!” said the artist, shutting up his knife with an air of decision. ”No, thank you, I always advocate moderation, and it would ill become me to set an example of glut--ah, of the reverse.”
”Wal, stranger,” said Waller, who, having finished eating, wiped his mouth with a tuft of gra.s.s, and began to fill his pipe. ”You _do_ come out in the way o' moderation rather powerful. Why a teal duck an' a ven'son steak is barely enough to stop a feller dyin' right off. I guess a down-east baby o' six months old 'ud swab up that an' axe for more.”
”Nevertheless it is quite enough for me,” replied the artist, leaning down on his elbow. ”I could, indeed, eat more; but I hold that man should always rise from table capable of eating more, if required.”
Here was a proposition that it had not entered into the minds of the trappers, even in their most transcendental efforts of abstruse meditation, to think of! They gazed at each other in amazement.
”Wot! not eat yer fill w'en ye git the chance,” exclaimed Bounce.
”No, certainly not.”
”I say, stranger, when did you feed last?” inquired Big Waller.
”Why do you ask?” said the artist, looking quickly up.
”'Cause I wants to know.”
The artist smiled. ”My last meal was eaten yesterday morning.”
”Ha! I was sure ob dat,” cried Gibault; ”your face look like as if you be full ob starvation.”
”An' _wot_ did ye eat last?” inquired Bounce, laying down his pipe and looking at their guest with much interest not unmingled with pity.
”I breakfasted on a little bird about the size of a hen's egg. I know not what it is named, but it was excellently flavoured. I relished it much.”
On hearing this, Gibault pressed his hand on his stomach, as if the mere thought of such a delicately minute breakfast caused him pain in that region.
”I say, stranger,” broke in Waller, in a tone of voice that seemed to imply that he was determined to be at the bottom of this mystery, and would stand it no longer--”wot's your name?”
”Theodore Bertram,” replied the artist without hesitation.
”Where do you come from?”
”From England.”
”Where air you a-goin' to?”
”To the Rocky Mountains.”
”Wot for to do there?”
”You are inquisitive, friend,” said Bertram, smiling; ”but I have no reason for concealing my object in travelling here--it is to sketch, and shoot, and take notes, and witness the works of the Almighty in the wilderness. I hold it to be an object worthy the ambition of a great man to act the part of pioneer to the missionary and the merchant in nature's wildest and most inaccessible regions; and although I pretend not to greatness, I endeavour, humbly, to do what I can.”
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