Belhumeur was a first-rate companion, of tried bravery; a thorough adventurer, gay, daring, and reckless, whose life had been almost entirely spent in the desert, and whom his attachment for Don Rafael had alone determined to give up the free and independent life of a hunter to confine himself, as he said with a smile, within stone walls, where he ofttimes felt that fresh air was wanting for his lungs.
Belhumeur was a book of which I turned over the leaves of at my pleasure, and each page was full of attractions for me, and offered me agreeable surprises.
Although I had myself long lived in the desert, I had as yet only traversed countries where buffalo is never met; hence I was extremely anxious to obtain some positive information about this interesting animal, so useful to the Indians, who profess for it a respect almost approaching to veneration. In this way I hoped not to be quite a novice when I joined the redskins, and would know not only in what way to attack the new enemy I was about to confront, but also how to behave, so as not to appear an utter ignoramus in the sight of the Indians.
One evening, while seated at our watch fire after supper, smoking my Indian pipe charged with _morrichée_, or prairie tobacco, I asked Belhumeur, whose good nature was inexhaustible, to give me the most circumstantial information about the buffalo, which he at once did with his usual goodwill.
This is what I learned in substance. I will ask my reader's pardon for substituting my recollections for the Canadian's prolix narration, for what they may lose in simplicity of expression they will gain in brevity, which is not a thing to be so much despised as might be supposed at the first blush.
I am bound to state that all Belhumeur then told me about the manners and habits of these singular animals was most rigorously exact, as I was in a position to convince myself at a later date. This, then, was Belhumeur's account.
The Indians say proverbially that bees are the advanced guard of the palefaces, and the buffaloes the vedettes of the redskins. In fact, although it is impossible to explain the reason, bees constantly seek to advance into the desert, and when they appear at the border of clearings, it is certain that two or three days later emigrants will turn up, with rifles on their shoulders, and followed by a long file of waggons, carts, horses, and cattle. These bold pioneers of civilisation come, impelled by their adventurous instincts, to set up their tents in the heart of the desert, on the shady banks of some unknown river, and their unceasing activity soon changes the character of the landscape.