"Come, then," I answered, with a
shrug.
I led the way over logs and under bushes, and the Englishman followed
silently; silently at least as to his tongue, but his feet were
garrulous. They stepped on twigs, stumbled on slippery lichen, and
shouted their passage for rods around.
"I would rather lead a buffalo in tether," I fretted, and just as I
said it he completed the sum of his blundering by catching his toe in a
root and plunging head foremost to the ground. I pulled him up by the
sleeve of his skin blouse and shook him free from loam and twigs.
"Now will you stop that?" I cried.
He looked at me gravely, unabashed, but curious. "I did not fall
purposely to irritate you. Gravity, which, I understand, operates
alike on the learned and the foolish, had some share in it. Why are
you angry?"
"Why are you reckless? You have crashed through here as careless of
noise as a stag with the hounds hot behind."
He dropped to the ground, and took one slim moccasined foot in his
hand. He looked at it soberly. "It seems a small thing, does it not,
to cause so much ill-will between us? It has neither weight nor mental
force above it, that it should make the earth tremble. No, monsieur,
you are searching for excuses for your annoyance with me.
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