rests as if they had been armed with the woodman's
axe; otters sported in the eddies; racoons sat in the tree-tops; the
marten, the black fox, and the wolf, prowled in the woods in quest of
prey; mountain sheep and goats browsed on the rocky ridges, and badgers
peeped from their holes.

Here, too, the wild horse sprang snorting and dishevelled from his
mountain retreats--with flourishing mane and tail, spanking step, and
questioning gaze,--and thundered away over the plains and valleys, while
the rocks echoed back his shrill neigh. The huge, heavy, ungainly elk,
or moose-deer, _trotted_ away from the travellers with speed equal to
that of the mustang. Elks seldom gallop; their best speed is attained
at the trot. Bears, too, black, and brown, and grizzly, roamed about
everywhere.

So numerous were all these creatures, that on one occasion the hunters
of the party brought in six wild horses, three bears, four elks, and
thirty red-deer; having shot them all a short distance ahead of the main
body, and almost without diverging from the line of march. And this was
a matter of every-day occurrence--as it had need to be, considering the
number of mouths that had to be filled.

The feathered tribes were not less numerous. Chief among these were
eagles and vultures of uncommon size, the wild goose, wild duck, and the
majestic swan.

In the midst of such profusion the trappers spent a happy time of it,
when not molested by the savages, but they frequently lost a horse or
two in consequence of the expertness of these thievish fellows. They
often wandered, however, for days at a time without seeing an Indian,
and at such times they enjoyed to the full the luxuries with which a
bountiful God had blessed these romantic regions.

Dick Varley was almost wild with delight. It was his first excursion
into the remote wilderness; he was young, healthy, strong, and romantic;
and it is a question whether his or his dog's heart, or that of the
noble wild horse he bestrode, bounded most with joy at the glorious
sights, and sounds, and influences by which they were surrounded. It
would have been perfection had it not been for the frequent annoyance
and alarms caused by the Indians.

Alas! alas! that we who write and read about those wondrous scenes
should have to condemn our own species as the most degraded of all the
works of the Creator there! Yet so it is. Man, exercising his reason
and conscience in the path of love and dut