We returned to the fort, and were preparing to fetch the meat in the cart, when we saw a horseman coming down the river, who soon dismounted at the gate, and walked up to me with a pleasant good morning, and shook my hand. He was indubitably the handsomest man I had ever seen, and the beauty of his form was heightened by his tight-fitting and neatly-made leathern dress. He was scarce twenty years of age, above six feet high, with a small head, long neck, broad retreating shoulders, a full chest, a very small waist, and muscular though handsomely-shaped legs, which were supported by very delicate ankles and feet, almost too small for his height. His lofty forehead was surrounded by black shining silky locks, and beneath his sharply-cut black eyebrows his blue eyes shone with a calmness and decision, but also with a kindliness, that it was impossible to offer him an unfavourable reception. His black silky beard passed under his straight nobly-formed nose round his smiling, partly-opened mouth, between whose cherry lips two rows of transparent white teeth were visible, and heightened the white complexion of his oval face and the fresh ruddiness of his cheeks. Thus this god of the desert stood before me with a grace and propriety such as are rarely met with in the gouty circles of high society; and I thought to myself that his appearance would attract attention and respect, in spite of the leathern garb, among the nobility of the Old World. Without asking him who he was, I gave him the hearty welcome which his amiability claimed, led him to the dining-room, had his luggage brought into the fort, and his horse put in a stall and supplied with maize leaves. Then a breakfast was set before my guest, and after begging him, in the old Spanish fashion, to make my house his home, I apologized for being obliged to leave him a little while, as I had shot some buffaloes close by, which I wanted to get home. "Will you allow me to assist you? I am a good hand at it," was his reply. He had soon finished his breakfast, and went with me out of the fort to the river bank where the buffalo lay. Although I had introduced Trusty to the stranger, the dog still pressed between him and me, which he noticed and remarked. "You have a fine hound there, who has grown up in the desert. I have heard of him before. He is no friend of bee-hunters, and yet he does not seem savage with me."