gest food
that a man can eat--and taken without bread or any other accompaniment,
doubtless contributes to render him wild and inhuman, and to assimilate
him in a certain degree to the savage animals by which he is surrounded.

During an excursion that I made with some companions towards the upper
part of the Red River, we met with several of these trappers; amongst
others, with one weather-beaten old fellow, whose face and bare neck
were tanned by sun and exposure to the colour of tortoise-shell. We
hunted two days in his company, without noticing any thing remarkable
about the man; he cooked our meals, which consisted usually of a haunch
of venison or a buffalo's hump, instructed us where to find game, and
was aware of the approach of the latter even sooner than his huge
wolf-dog, which never left his side. It was only on the morning of the
third day, that we discovered something calculated to diminish our
confidence in our new comrade. This was a number of lines and crosses
upon the butt of his rifle, which gave us a new and not very favourable
insight into the man's character. These lines and crosses came after
certain words rudely scratched with a knife-point, and formed a sort of
list, of which the following is a copy:--

Buffaloes--no number given, they being probably too numerous.

Bears, nineteen--the number being indicated by nineteen strait strokes.

Wolves, thirteen--marked by oblique strokes.

Red underloppers, four--marked by four crosses.

White underloppers, two--noted by two stars.

Whilst we were examining this curious calendar, and puzzling ourselves
to make out the meaning of the word "underloppers," I observed a grim
smile stealing over the features of the old trapper. He said nothing,
however; drew the buffalo's hump he was cooking from under the hot
embers, took it out of the piece of hide in which it was wrapped, and
placed it before us. It was a meal that a king might have envied, and
the mere smell of it made us forget the rifle butt. We had scarcely
fallen to, when the old man laid hold of his gun.

"Look ye," said he, with a strange grin. "It's my pocket-book. D'ye
think it a sin to kill one of them red or white underloppers?"

"Whom do you mean?" asked we.

The man smiled again and rose to depart; his look, however, was alone
enough to enlighten us as to who the two-legged interlopers were whom he
had first shot, and then noted on his rifle-butt with as much cool
indifference as i