Far into the night we sat, Nick and I, our feet dangling over the forward edge of the cabin, looking at the glory of the moon on the vast river, at the endless forest crown, at the haze which hung like silver dust under the high bluffs on the American side.  We slept.  We awoke again as the moon was shrinking abashed before the light that glowed above these cliffs, and the river was turned from brown to gold and then to burnished copper, the forest to a thousand shades of green from crest to the banks where the river was licking the twisted roots to nakedness.  The south wind wafted the sharp wood-smoke from the chimney across our faces.  In the stern Xavier stood immovable against the tiller, his short pipe clutched between his teeth, the colors of his new worsted belt made gorgeous by the rising sun.

“B’jour, Michie,” he said, and added in the English he had picked up from the British traders, “the breakfas’ he is ready, and Jean make him good.  Will you have the grace to descen’?”

We went down the ladder into the cabin, where the odor of the furs mingled with the smell of the cooking.  There was a fricassee steaming on the crane, some of Zeron’s bread, brought from St. Louis, and coffee that Monsieur Gratiot had provided for our use.  We took our bowls and cups on deck and sat on the edge of the cabin.

“By gad,” cried Nick, “it lacks but the one element to make it a paradise.”

“And what is that?” I demanded.

“A woman,” said he.

Xavier, who overheard, gave a delighted laugh.

“Parbleu, Michie, you have right,” he said, “but Michie Gratiot, he say no.  In Nouvelle Orleans we find some.”

Nick got to his feet, and if anything he did could have surprised me, I should have been surprised when he put his arm coaxingly about Xavier’s neck.  Xavier himself was surprised and correspondingly delighted.

“Tell me, Xavier,” he said, with a look not to be resisted, “do you think I shall find some beauties there?”

“Beauties!” exclaimed Xavier, “La Nouvelle Orleans—­it is the home of beauty, Michie.  They promenade themselves on the levee, they look down from ze gallerie, mais—­”

“But what, Xavier?”

“But, mon Dieu, Michie, they are vair’ difficile.  They are not like Englis’ beauties, there is the father and the mother, and—­the convent.”  And Xavier, who had a wen under his eye, laid his finger on it.

“For shame, Xavier,” cried Nick; “and you are balked by such things?”

Xavier thought this an exceedingly good joke, and he took his pipe out of his mouth to laugh the better.

“Me?  Mais non, Michie.  And yet ze Alcalde, he mek me afraid.  Once he put me in ze calaboose when I tried to climb ze balcon’.”

Nick roared.

“I will show you how, Xavier,” he said; “as to climbing the balconies, there is a convenance in it, as in all else.  For instance, one must be daring, and discreet, and nimble, and ready to give the law a presentable answer, and lacking that, a piastre.  And then the fair one must be a fair one indeed.”