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About the same time Reuben Guff made proposals to him to join him on a second "v'yage of diskivery." The Indian agreed; got married off-hand, and took his bride along with him. We now find them all four at the Lake of the Hills. It may be as well to observe, in passing, that Indian brides are usually more robust than those of civilised communities.
"To dinner, monsieur." "Reuben," said Mackenzie, with a peculiar look, "has all your pioneering enthusiasm oozed out at your finger ends?" "No, monsieur," replied the man, with a slight smile, "but Lawrence and I have bin thinkin' of late that as Monsieur Mackenzie seems to have lost heart, we must undertake a v'yage o' diskivery on our own account!" "Good.
Anxious? Yes, I am. I'm that anxious that the diskivery of the lost boy is now the one idee of my life, for which I forget all else; but allow me to say, at the same time, that I fully, furmly, an conshuentiously bleve an affum, that my conviction is, that that thar lad is bound to turn up all right in the end right side up with care sound in every respect, in good order an condition, jest as when fust shipped on board the good schooner Antelope, Corbet master, for Petticoat Jack, as per bill ladin."
In a manner, too, I'm goin' both to hunt an' trade in a small way; but my main business on this trip is to be diskivery." The Indian uttered a sound, which meant that he did not understand. "I'm goin' to sarch out new lands," explained Reuben, "away to the far north.
"It won't be altogether a trip of diskivery neither, for I've got some bales of goods with me, and as we go in a small birch canoe, we'll travel light; but I hope to come back sunk to the gunwale with furs, for the red-skins of the far north are like enough to have plenty of pelts, and they won't ask much for them.
"Yes," says Walt, "they're strikin' straight fur the valley, goin' 'ithout guess-work, too. Thar's a guide along, an' thar's been a treetur." "Who do you think?" "That Injun, Manoel. Ye remember he went on a errand 'bout a week ago, to fetch them some things that war needed. Instead, he's made diskivery o' the hidin' place o' his master, and sold that master's head. That's what he's did, sure."
"Thank'ee, sir," said Reuben, while a quiet smile of satisfaction lighted up his grave features. "It was all along a hobby o' mine, an' of Lawrence too, to do a bit o' diskivery; an' now we're content for it ain't possible, I fancy, to do much more in that line than push your canoe into the Frozen Sea on the one hand, or the Pacific on the other.
"It's of no manner of use, you see," he said to Swiftarrow, when conversing on the subject, "for me to go off on a v'yage o' diskivery w'en a gentleman like Monsieur Mackenzie, with a good edication an' scienteefic knowledge and the wealth of a fur company at his back, is goin' to take it in hand.
As for the red-skin," he added, glancing at Swiftarrow, "he ha'n't got no ambition one way or another as to diskivery; but he's a good and true man, nevertheless, you'll allow. And now, sir, farewell. May a blessing from above rest on you and yours." Saying this the bold backwoodsman shook Mackenzie by the hand and left the room. Every one in the fort was on the bank to bid them farewell.
Suddenly the dog, which had been watching his master's motions intently, put his nose to the ground, darted along the path further into the ravine, and presently resounded another of those mournful howls. "Ha! another diskivery!" exclaimed the hunter, as he started after his companion.
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