heeks, out of fountains that had long
been dried, and, sinking his face between his knees, he covered it
decently with his buckskin garment, and sobbed aloud.

The spectacle produced correspondent emotions in his companions. Paul
Hover had actually swallowed each syllable of the discourse as they fell
alternately from the different speakers, his feelings keeping equal
pace with the increasing interest of the scene. Unused to such strange
sensations, he was turning his face on every side of him, to avoid he
knew not what, until he saw the tears and heard the sobs of the old
man, when he sprang to his feet, and grappling his guest fiercely by
the throat, he demanded by what authority he had made his aged companion
weep. A flash of recollection crossing his brain at the same instant, he
released his hold, and stretching forth an arm in the very wantonness
of gratification, he seized the Doctor by the hair, which instantly
revealed its artificial formation, by cleaving to his hand, leaving the
white and shining poll of the naturalist with a covering no warmer than
the skin.

"What think you of that, Mr. Bug-gatherer?" he rather shouted than
cried: "is not this a strange bee to line into his hole?"

"'Tis remarkable! wonderful! edifying!" returned the lover of nature,
good-humouredly recovering his wig, with twinkling eyes and a husky
voice. "'Tis rare and commendable. Though I doubt not in the exact order
of causes and effects."

With this sudden outbreaking, however, the commotion instantly subsided;
the three spectators clustering around the trapper with a species of
awe, at beholding the tears of one so aged.

"It must be so, or how could he be so familiar with a history that is
little known beyond my own family," at length the youth observed, not
ashamed to acknowledge how much he had been affected, by unequivocally
drying his own eyes.

"True!" echoed Paul; "if you want any more evidence I will swear to it!
I know every word of it myself to be true as the gospel!"

"And yet we had long supposed him dead!" continued the soldier. "My
grandfather had filled his days with honour, and he had believed himself
the junior of the two."

"It is not often that youth has an opportunity of thus looking down
on the weakness of age!" the trapper observed, raising his head, and
looking around him with composure and dignity. "That I am still here,
young man, is the pleasure of the Lord, who has spared me until I have
seen fou