tle vehicle, which rolled over the grass with as much seeming
facility as if it were drawn by its usual team.

The trapper paused, and followed the departing wagon with his eye,
marvelling greatly as to the nature of its concealed contents, until it
had also gained the summit of the eminence, and in its turn disappeared
behind the swell of the land. Then he turned to gaze at the desolation
of the scene around him. The absence of human forms would have scarce
created a sensation in the bosom of one so long accustomed to solitude,
had not the site of the deserted camp furnished such strong memorials
of its recent visitors, and as the old man was quick to detect, of their
waste also. He cast his eye upwards, with a shake of the head, at
the vacant spot in the heavens which had so lately been filled by
the branches of those trees that now lay stripped of their verdure,
worthless and deserted logs, at his feet.

"Ay," he muttered to himself, "I might have know'd it--I might have
know'd it! Often have I seen the same before; and yet I brought them
to the spot myself, and have now sent them to the only neighbourhood of
their kind within many long leagues of the spot where I stand. This is
man's wish, and pride, and waste, and sinfulness! He tames the beasts of
the field to feed his idle wants; and, having robbed the brutes of their
natural food, he teaches them to strip the 'arth of its trees to quiet
their hunger."

A rustling in the low bushes which still grew, for some distance, along
the swale that formed the thicket on which the camp of Ishmael had
rested, caught his ear, at the moment, and cut short the soliloquy. The
habits of so many years, spent in the wilderness, caused the old man
to bring his rifle to a poise, with something like the activity and
promptitude of his youth; but, suddenly recovering his recollection,
he dropped it into the hollow of his arm again, and resumed his air of
melancholy resignation.

"Come forth, come forth!" he said aloud: "be ye bird, or be ye beast, ye
are safe from these old hands. I have eaten and I have drunk: why should
I take life, when my wants call for no sacrifice? It will not be long
afore the birds will peck at eyes that shall not see them, and perhaps
light on my very bones; for if things like these are only made to
perish, why am I to expect to live for ever? Come forth, come forth; you
are safe from harm at these weak hands."

"Thank you for the good word, old trapper!"