as the prairie-hunter,--the fearless follower
of the bear and buffalo, accustomed to the life of the wild woods,--than
as the mere adventurer, whose sole stock in trade was the subterfuge and
deceit he could practise on the unwary.

It was strange enough all this while that I seemed to have lost sight of
my old guide-star,--the great passion of my earlier years, the desire to
be a "gentleman." It was stranger still, but after-reflection has shown
me that it was true, I made far greater progress toward that wished-for
goal when I ceased to make it the object of my ambition.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE FATE OF A GAMBUSINO

"The life of the prairie," with all its seeming monotony, was very far
from wearisome. The chase, which to some might have presented the same
unvarying aspect, to those who passionately loved sport abounded in new
and exciting incidents. If upon one day the object of pursuit was the
powerful bison bull, with his shaggy mane and short straight horns, on
another, it was the swift antelope or the prairie fox, whose sable skin
is the rarest piece of dandyism a hunter's pelisse can exhibit; now and
then the wide-spread paw of a brown bear would mark the earth, and
give us days of exciting pursuit; or, again, some Indian "trail"--some
red-man "sign"--would warn us that we were approaching the
hunting-grounds of a tribe, and that all our circumspection was needed.
Besides these, there were changes, inappreciable to the uninitiated,
but thoroughly understood by us, in the landscape itself, highly
interesting. It is a well-known fact that the shepherd becomes
conversant with the face of every sheep in his flock, tracing
differences of expression where others would recognize nothing but
a blank uniformity; so did the prairie, which at first presented one
unvarying expanse, become at last marked by a hundred peculiarities,
with which close observation made us intimate. Indeed, I often wondered
how a great stretching plain, without a house, a tree, a shrub, or a
trickling brook, could supply the materials of scenic interest; and the
explanation is almost as difficult as the fact. One must have lived the
life of solitude and isolation which these wild wastes compel, to feel
how every moss-clad stone can have its meaning,--how the presence of
some little insignificant lichen indicates the vicinity of water,--how
the blue foxbell shows where honey is to be found,--how the faint spiral
motion of the pirn grass gives warni