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 since I have been on this cursed prairie. He's the most
uncomfortable man I ever met."
"Yes," said Jack; "and don't you know, Bill, how he drank up all the
coffee last night, and put the rest by for himself till the morning!"
"He pretends to know everything," resumed the captain; "nobody must
give orders but he! It's, oh! we must do this; and, oh! we must do
that; and the tent must be pitched here, and the horses must be
picketed there; for nobody knows as well as he does."
We were a little surprised at this disclosure of domestic dissensions
among our allies, for though we knew of their existence, we were not
aware of their extent. The persecuted captain seeming wholly at a
loss as to the course of conduct that he should pursue, we
recommended him to adopt prompt and energetic measures; but all his
military experience had failed to teach him the indispensable lesson
to be "hard," when the emergency requires it.
"For twenty years," he repeated, "I have been in the British army,
and in that time I have been intimately acquainted with some two
hundred officers, young and old, and I never yet quarreled with any
man. Oh, 'anything for a quiet life!' that's my maxim."
We intimated that the prairie was hardly the place to enjoy a quiet
life, but that, in the present circumstances, the best thing he could
do toward securing his wished-for tranquillity, was immediately to
put a period to the nuisance that disturbed it.
