Here nothing was visible but a solitary buffaloe, that gleaned a meagre subsistence from the decaying herbage, at no great distance, and the ass of the physician, who profited by his freedom to enjoy a meal richer than common.
"Yonder is one of the creatures left by the villains to mock us," said Ishmael, glancing his eye towards the latter, "and that the meanest of the stock.

This is a hard country to make a crop in, boys; and yet food must be found to fill many hungry mouths!" "The rifle is better than the hoe, in such a place as this," returned the eldest of his sons, kicking the hard and thirsty soil on which he stood, with an air of contempt.

"It is good for such as they who make their dinner better on beggars' beans than on homminy.

A crow would shed tears if obliged by its errand to fly across the district." "What say you, trapper ?" returned the father, showing the slight impression his powerful heel had made on the compact earth, and laughing with frightful ferocity.

"Is this the quality of land a man would choose who never troubles the county clerk with title deeds ?" "There is richer soil in the bottoms," returned the old man calmly, "and you have passed millions of acres to get to this dreary spot, where he who loves to till the 'arth might have received bushels in return for pints, and that too at the cost of no very grievous labour.