recluse, the
necessities of his situation, his keeping cows, and the means of
restricting their range; dwelt upon the evidence of the tree fences,
and argued that the fact that two of them were used for that purpose,
was conclusive that the other sides were also fenced, for without them
no enclosure could exist. And he referred to the well known universal
custom of that early day.

Lord! how those old and somewhat mythical tree fences grew, and came
out under his hands! The hunters had herded elk in their angles;
bears had been trapped in their jungles; the doe hid her fawn in their
recesses; wolves and foxes had found lairs in them; birds had built
nests in them; men in search of strayed cattle had climbed upon them
to listen for the tinkling bell; balm and thyme, wild sun-flowers and
celandine had made them fragrant with perfume, and bright with color.

Basil Hall went to that spring, and built and occupied, because he
owned it. His very settlement and occupancy was a proclamation of
ownership--an assertion of right--the most satisfactory, and so the
Court would say. Here he read from the Ohio Reports, to show that a
parol claim, without any written color of title, was sufficient to
make the claim. He then referred to the evidence of Bullock, that Hall
did by word claim such right; that the claim was acknowledged by Cole,
who bought and paid for it. If Hall had been without claim of right,
Cole would have turned him out; but he acknowledged it, bought,
got it, and held it. The word of Ward could not be taken; he was
interested; if taken, it could not be believed; if believed, it proved
nothing, for the admission of Hall to him, that he had no right,
was made after Hall had sold out, and hence not evidence against the
purchaser, all of which he forcibly illustrated; and the proposition
was conceded to be law. He claimed that this defence under the
purchase from Hall, was perfect in itself.

His defence of Bullock from the attack on him, was forcible and
beautiful. The old man was a hunter, had been a soldier, etc., and the
unforgotten Indian battles of the recent war flashed before the jury,
and all the sylvan romance of a hunter's life was reproduced as by
magic.

In the second place he contended that Cole made an absolute defense
on his claim of title under his deed; no matter though John Williams,
Junior, was the bastard of a bastard; his deed was good to make a
claim of title under, by the common law of Englan