“Well, it is strange how some folk can’t abide anything in the meat way they ha’n’t bin used to.  D’ye know I’ve actually knowed men from the cities as wouldn’t eat a bit o’ horseflesh for love or money.  Would ye believe it?”

“I can well believe that, Joe, for I have met with such persons myself; in fact, they are rather numerous.  What are you chuckling at, Joe?”

“Chucklin’?  If ye mean be that ‘larfin in to myself,’ it’s because I’m thinkin’ o’ a chap as once comed out to the prairies.”

“Let us walk back to the camp, Joe, and you can tell me about him as we go along.”

“I think,” continued Joe, “he comed from Washington, but I never could make out right whether he wos a Government man or not.  Anyhow, he wos a pheelosopher—­a natter-list I think he call his-self—­”

“A naturalist,” suggested Cameron.

“Ay, that wos more like it.  Well, he wos about six feet two in his moccasins, an’ as thin as a ramrod, an’ as blind as a bat—­leastways he had weak eyes an’ wore green spectacles.  He had on a gray shootin’ coat an’ trousers an’ vest an’ cap, with rid whiskers an’ a long nose as rid at the point as the whiskers wos.”

“Well, this gentleman engaged me an’ another hunter to go a trip with him into the prairies, so off we sot one fine day on three hosses, with our blankets at our backs—­we wos to depend on the rifle for victuals.  At first I thought the natter-list one o’ the cruellest beggars as iver went on two long legs, for he used to go about everywhere pokin’ pins through all the beetles an’ flies an’ creepin’ things he could sot eyes on, an’ stuck them in a box.  But he told me he comed here a-purpose to git as many o’ them as he could; so says I, ‘If that’s it, I’ll fill yer box in no time.’

“‘Will ye?’ says he, quite pleased like.

“‘I will,’ says I, an’ galloped off to a place as was filled wi’ all sorts o’ crawlin’ things.  So I sets to work, an’ whenever I seed a thing crawlin’ I sot my fut on it an’ crushed it, an’ soon filled my breast pocket.  I cotched a lot o’ butterflies too, an’ stuffed them into my shot-pouch, an’ went back in an hour or two an’ showed him the lot.  He put on his green spectacles an’ looked at them as if he’d seen a rattlesnake.

“‘My good man,’ says he, ‘you’ve crushed them all to pieces!’

“‘They’ll taste as good for all that,’ says I; for somehow I’d taken’t in me head that he’d heard o’ the way the Injuns make soup o’ the grasshoppers, an’ wos wantin’ to try his hand at a new dish!

“He laughed when I said this, an’ told me he wos collectin’ them to take home to be looked at.  But that’s not wot I was goin’ to tell ye about him,” continued Joe; “I wos goin’ to tell ye how we made him eat horseflesh.  He carried a revolver, too, this natter-list did, to load wi’ shot as small as dust a’most, an’ shoot little birds with.  I’ve seed him miss birds only three feet away with it.  An’ one day he drew