d'ye see yerself?"

"Wall, I does," replied Waller, looking complacently down at his huge
limbs.

"Good; then d'ye see the ground over there?" continued Bounce, pointing
with his pipe to the Rocky Mountains.

Waller nodded.

"Now then," said Bounce, in those deep earnest tones with which men
usually attempt to probe the marrow of some desperately knotty question;
"now, then, when Mr Bertram's a drawin' of, an' tries to look at the
ground over there, you an' me comes _before_ the ground, d'ye see; an'
so we're, as ye may say, _before-grounds_. But men wot studies human
natur' an' langwidges, d'ye see, comes for to know that words is always
gittin' onnecessary bits chopped off 'em--sometimes at one end,
sometimes at t'other. So they tuck off the B, d'ye see, an' made it
foreground, and that's how we come to be foregrounds."

"Oh!" said Waller, with the vacant air of a man who feels himself as
wise at the termination as he was at the beginning of an explanation.

"Yes," resumed Bounce, "that's how it is. I must confess, for my part,
that I don't 'xactly see the advantage o' us in that light. I should
ha' thought it would ha' bin better to make us stand to one side, d'ye
see, and let him see how the land lies. But there's no accountin' for
taste in this wurld--I've obsarved that, iver since I was three fut
two."

Having delivered himself of this graphic exposition of an abstruse
subject, Bounce relapsed into silence, and the whole party continued for
some minutes in a profound reverie. From this felicitous condition they
were awakened by the sudden appearance of Black Gibault, who darted out
of the poplar bluff and made towards them at the top of his speed. He
uttered no cry, but, on coming near enough to permit of his features
being clearly seen, it was observed that his eyes were eagerly wide
open, and that his mouth was engaged in the formation of words. A
second or two more, and he was near enough to be heard uttering the word
"buffaloes" in a hoarse whisper.

"Ho! boy, wot is't?" cried Bounce in an equally hoarse whisper.

"Ba--buffaloes, hah! buffaloes," cried Gibault, panting violently as he
came up; "Where be de leetle gun? He! Monsieur Bertram, out vid it."

"Where saw ye them?" asked Redhand, seizing the two pistols, and
examining the priming.

"Jist oder side of de bluff. Ver' close to de bushes. Queek! queek!
vite! mon garcon, you is so drefful slow."

The latter part of this sentence