him one
of those civilities with which, uncouth as they were, she was little
accustomed to grace her hospitality, as if in deference to the travelled
dignity of her guest. After a long, and, seemingly, a meditating
silence, the emigrant, who had, however, seen no apparent necessity to
suspend the functions of his masticating powers, resumed the discourse.

"It is a long road, as I have heard, from the waters of the west to the
shores of the main sea?"

"It is a weary path, indeed, friend; and much have I seen, and something
have I suffered, in journeying over it."

"A man would see a good deal of hard travel in going its length!"

"Seventy and five years have I been upon the road; and there are not
half that number of leagues in the whole distance, after you leave the
Hudson, on which I have not tasted venison of my own killing. But this
is vain boasting. Of what use are former deeds, when time draws to an
end?"

"I once met a man that had boated on the river he names," observed the
eldest son, speaking in a low tone of voice, like one who distrusted his
knowledge, and deemed it prudent to assume a becoming diffidence in the
presence of a man who had seen so much: "from his tell, it must be
a considerable stream, and deep enough for a keel-boat, from top to
bottom."

"It is a wide and deep water-course, and many sightly towns are there
growing on its banks," returned the trapper; "and yet it is but a brook
to the waters of the endless river."

"I call nothing a stream that a man can travel round," exclaimed the
ill-looking associate of the emigrant: "a real river must be crossed;
not headed, like a bear in a county hunt."[*]

[*] There is a practice, in the new countries, to assemble the men of
a large district, sometimes of an entire county, to exterminate
the beasts of prey. They form themselves into a circle of several
miles in extent, and gradually draw nearer, killing all before
them. The allusion is to this custom, in which the hunted beast is
turned from one to another.

"Have you been far towards the sun-down, friend?" interrupted the
emigrant, as if he desired to keep his rough companion as much as
possible out of the discourse. "I find it is a wide tract of clearing,
this, into which I have fallen."

"You may travel weeks, and you will see it the same. I often think the
Lord has placed this barren belt of prairie behind the States, to
warn men to what their folly may yet b