Ah's me! what a number of seasons, hot and cold, wet and dry, have rolled over my poor head, since the time we worried it out together, among the Red Hurons of the Lakes, back in those rugged mountains of Old York! and many a noble buck has since that day fallen by my hand; ay, and many a thieving Mingo, too! Tell me, lad, did the general, for general I know he got to be, did he ever tell you of the deer we took, that night the outlyers of the accursed tribe drove us to the caves, on the island, and how we feasted and drunk in security ?" "I have often heard him mention the smallest circumstance of the night you mean; but--" "And the singer; and his open throat; and his shoutings in the fights!" continued the old man, laughing joyously at the strength of his own recollections.
"All--all--he forgot nothing, even to the most trifling incident.

Do you not--" "What! did he tell you of the imp behind the log and of the miserable devil who went over the fall--or of the wretch in the tree ?" "Of each and all, with every thing that concerned them.[*] I should think--" [*] They who have read the preceding books, in which, the trapper appears as a hunter and a scout, will readily understand the allusions.
"Ay," continued the old man, in a voice, which betrayed how powerfully his own faculties retained the impression of the spectacle, "I have been a dweller in forests, and in the wilderness for three-score and ten years, and if any can pretend to know the world, or to have seen scary sights, it is myself! But never, before nor since, have I seen human man in such a state of mortal despair as that very savage; and yet he scorned to speak, or to cry out, or to own his forlorn condition! It is their gift, and nobly did he maintain it!" "Harkee, old trapper," interrupted Paul, who, content with the knowledge that his waist was grasped by one of the arms of Ellen, had hitherto ridden in unusual silence; "my eyes are as true and as delicate as a humming-bird's in the day; but they are nothing worth boasting of by starlight.

Is that a sick buffaloe, crawling along in the bottom, there, or is it one of the stray cattle of the savages ?" The whole party drew up, in order to examine the object, which Paul had pointed out.

During most of the time, they had ridden in the little vales in order to seek the protection of the shadows, but just at that moment, they had ascended a roll of the prairie in order to cross into the very bottom where this unknown animal was now seen.
"Let us descend," said Middleton; "be it beast or man, we are too strong to have any cause of fear." "Now, if the thing was not morally impossible," cried the trapper, who the reader must have already discovered was not always exact in the use of qualifying words, "if the thing was not morally impossible, I should say, that was the man, who journeys in search of reptiles and insects: our fellow-traveller the Doctor." "Why impossible?
did you not direct him to pursue this course, in order to rejoin us ?" "Ay, but I did not tell him to make an ass outdo the speed of a horse:--you are right--you are right," said the trapper, interrupting himself, as by gradually lessening the distance between them, his eyes assured him it was Obed and Asinus, whom he saw; "you are right, as certainly as the thing is a miracle.

Lord, what a thing is fear! How now, friend; you have been industrious to have got so far ahead in so short a time.