. Hither then the trapper contrived to turn his steed without
exciting the suspicions of any of his subtle companions.
    »Friend,« commenced the old man when he found himself in a situation
favorable to discourse, »should you like to pass a dozen years among the
savages, with a shaved head, and a painted countenance, with perhaps a couple of
wives and five or six children, of the half-breed to call you father?«
    »Impossible!« exclaimed the startled naturalist, »I am indisposed to
matrimony, in general, and more especially to all admixture of the varieties of
species, which only tend to tarnish the beauty and to interrupt the harmony of
nature. Moreover, it is a painful innovation on the order of all nomenclatures!«
    »Ay, ay, you have reason, enough for your distaste to such a life, but
should these Siouxes get you fairly into their village such would be your luck,
as certain as that the sun rises and sets at the pleasure of the Lord.«
    »Marry me to a woman who is not adorned with the comeliness of the species!«
responded the Doctor. »Of what crime have I been guilty that so grievous a
punishment should await the offense. To marry a man against the movements of his
will is to do a violence to human nature!«
    »Now that you speak of natur' I have hopes that the gift of reason has not
altogether deserted your brain,« returned the old man, with a covert expression
playing about the angles of his deep set eyes, which betrayed he was not
entirely destitute of humour. »Nay, they may conceive you a remarkable subject
for their kindness, and, for that matter, marry you to five or six. I have
known, in my day, favored chiefs who had numberless wives.«
    »But why should they meditate this vengeance?« demanded the Doctor, whose
hair began to rise as if each fibre was possessed of sensibility; »what evil
have I done?«
    »It is the fashion of their kindness. When they come to learn that you are a
great medecine, they will adopt you in the tribe, and some mighty chief will
give you his name, and perhaps his daughter, or it may be a wife or two of his
own, who have dwelt long in his lodge and of whose value he is a judge, by
experience.«
    »The Governor and Founder of Natural Harmony Protect me!« ejaculated the
Doctor. »I have no affinity to a single consort, much less to duplicates and
triplicates of the
