w-shoes. At the close of the day, fires were kindled with dry
hemlock, a hut thrown up, and the party ate and slept.

Paid off at last, Israel bought a gun and ammunition, and turned
hunter. Deer, beaver, etc., were plenty. In two or three months he had
many skins to show. I suppose it never entered his mind that he was thus
qualifying himself for a marksman of men. But thus were tutored those
wonderful shots who did such execution at Bunker's Hill; these, the
hunter-soldiers, whom Putnam bade wait till the white of the enemy's eye
was seen.

With the result of his hunting he purchased a hundred acres of land,
further down the river, toward the more settled parts; built himself a
log hut, and in two summers, with his own hands, cleared thirty acres
for sowing. In the winter seasons he hunted and trapped. At the end of
the two years, he sold back his land--now much improved--to the original
owner, at an advance of fifty pounds. He conveyed his cash and furs to
Charlestown, on the Connecticut (sometimes called No. 4), where he
trafficked them away for Indian blankets, pigments, and other showy
articles adapted to the business of a trader among savages. It was now
winter again. Putting his goods on a hand-sled, he started towards
Canada, a peddler in the wilderness, stopping at wigwams instead of
cottages. One fancies that, had it been summer, Israel would have
travelled with a wheelbarrow, and so trundled his wares through the
primeval forests, with the same indifference as porters roll their
barrows over the flagging of streets. In this way was bred that fearless
self-reliance and independence which conducted our forefathers to
national freedom.

This Canadian trip proved highly successful. Selling his glittering
goods at a great advance, he received in exchange valuable peltries and
furs at a corresponding reduction. Returning to Charlestown, he disposed
of his return cargo again at a very fine profit. And now, with a light
heart and a heavy purse, he resolved to visit his sweetheart and
parents, of whom, for three years, he had had no tidings.

They were not less astonished than delighted at his reappearance; he had
been numbered with the dead. But his love still seemed strangely coy;
willing, but yet somehow mysteriously withheld. The old intrigues were
still on foot. Israel soon discovered, that though rejoiced to welcome
the return of the prodigal son--so some called him--his father still
remained inflexibly det