While the events related in the last two chapters occurred at Guadaloupe, Reginald was busily employed at Mooshanne in completing the preparations for his projected visit to the Delawares, in the Far–west; he had (by putting in practice the instructions given him by War–Eagle respecting Nekimi) at length succeeded in gaining that noble animal’s affection; he neighed at Reginald’s approach, knew and obeyed his voice, fed from his hand, and received and returned his caresses, as he had before done those of his Indian master. It was when mounted on Nekimi that our hero found his spirit most exulting and buoyant; he gave him the rein on the broadest of the neighbouring prairies, and loved to feel the springy fleetness and untiring muscles of this child of the western desert. Sometimes, after a gallop of many miles, he would leap from the saddle, to look with pride and pleasure on the spirited eye, the full veins, the expanded nostril of his favourite; at other times he would ride him slowly through the most tangled and difficult ground, admiring the instinctive and unerring sagacity with which he picked his way. Among Reginald’s other accomplishments, he had learnt in Germany to play not unskilfully on the horn; and constantly carrying his bugle across his shoulders, Nekimi grew so accustomed to the sound, that he would come to it from any distance within hearing of its call. It appeared to Reginald so probable that the bugle might render him good service on his summer excursion, that he not only practised his horse to it, but he prevailed on Baptiste to learn his various signals, and even to reply on another horn to some of the simplest of them. The honest guide’s first attempts to sound the bugle were ludicrous in the extreme; but he good–humouredly persevered, until Reginald and he could, from a considerable distance, exchange many useful signals agreed upon between them, and of course intelligible to none but themselves. Among these were the following: “Beware!”—“Come to me,”—“Be still,”—“Bring my horse,” and one or two others for hunting purposes, such as “A bear!”—“Buffalo!” To these they added a reply, which was always to signify “I understand.” But if the party called was prevented from obeying, this signal was to be varied accordingly.