The Mouth of the Arkansas

De Noyan kept to his nature, and I liked him none the worse for it, although it is not pleasant to have at your side a gay cavalier one moment and a peevish woman the next. You never know which may be uppermost. Yet he performed his full share of toil like a man, and, when not curling his long moustachios, or swearing in provincial French, was mostly what he should be, a careless soldier of fortune, to whom life appealed more as a play than a stern duty. He was of that spirit most severely tried by such drudgery, and, looking back upon it, I can only wonder he bore the burden as cheerfully as he did. Beneath his reckless, grumbling exterior, the metal of the man was not of such poor quality.

However continual labor and enforced companionship told upon the rest, Madame retained her sweetness through it all, hushing our lips from many a sharp retort that had threatened to disrupt our party long before this time. She had merely to glance toward us to silence any rising strife, for no man having a true heart beneath his doublet could find spirit to quarrel before the disapproving glance of her dark eyes. It was thus we toiled forward, until one frosty morning our boat arrived where this great stream poured forth from the west, forcing its reddish, muddy current far out into the wide river against which we had struggled so long. Slowly rounding the low, marshy promontory, and beginning to feel the fierce tug of down-pouring waters against our bow, I observed the old Puritan suddenly cock up his ears, like some suspicious watch-dog, twisting his little glittering eyes from side to side, as though the spot looked familiar.