This is man's wish, and pride, and waste, and sinfulness! He tames the beasts of the field to feed his idle wants; and, having robbed the brutes of their natural food, he teaches them to strip the 'arth of its trees to quiet their hunger." A rustling in the low bushes which still grew, for some distance, along the swale that formed the thicket on which the camp of Ishmael had rested, caught his ear, at the moment, and cut short the soliloquy.

The habits of so many years, spent in the wilderness, caused the old man to bring his rifle to a poise, with something like the activity and promptitude of his youth; but, suddenly recovering his recollection, he dropped it into the hollow of his arm again, and resumed his air of melancholy resignation.
"Come forth, come forth!" he said aloud: "be ye bird, or be ye beast, ye are safe from these old hands.

I have eaten and I have drunk: why should I take life, when my wants call for no sacrifice?
It will not be long afore the birds will peck at eyes that shall not see them, and perhaps light on my very bones; for if things like these are only made to perish, why am I to expect to live for ever?
Come forth, come forth; you are safe from harm at these weak hands." "Thank you for the good word, old trapper!" cried Paul Hover, springing actively forward from his place of concealment.

"There was an air about you, when you threw forward the muzzle of the piece, that I did not like; for it seemed to say that you were master of all the rest of the motions." "You are right, you are right!" cried the trapper, laughing with inward self-complacency at the recollection of his former skill.

"The day has been when few men knew the virtues of a long rifle, like this I carry, better than myself, old and useless as I now seem.