It was a grievous journey that I made; a grievous toil to pass through falling timber and to breathe the thick air of smoky clearings, week after week, as I did! 'Tis a far country too, that state of York from this!" "It lies ag'in the outer edge of old Kentuck, I reckon; though what the distance may be I never knew." "A gull would have to fan a thousand miles of air to find the eastern sea.

And yet it is no mighty reach to hunt across, when shade and game are plenty! The time has been when I followed the deer in the mountains of the Delaware and Hudson, and took the beaver on the streams of the upper lakes in the same season, but my eye was quick and certain at that day, and my limbs were like the legs of a moose! The dam of Hector," dropping his look kindly to the aged hound that crouched at his feet, "was then a pup, and apt to open on the game the moment she struck the scent.

She gave me a deal of trouble, that slut, she did!" "Your hound is old, stranger, and a rap on the head would prove a mercy to the beast." "The dog is like his master," returned the trapper, without appearing to heed the brutal advice the other gave, "and will number his days, when his work amongst the game is over, and not before.

To my eye things seem ordered to meet each other in this creation.

'Tis not the swiftest running deer that always throws off the hounds, nor the biggest arm that holds the truest rifle.