t, to preserve
the record of my end. You will say that after a well-spent and glorious
life, I died a martyr to science, and a victim to mental darkness. As I
expect to be particularly calm and abstracted in my last moments, if you
add a few details, concerning the fortitude and scholastic dignity with
which I met my death, it may serve to encourage future aspirants for
similar honours, and assuredly give offence to no one. And now, friend
trapper, as a duty I owe to human nature, I will conclude by demanding
if all hope has deserted me, or if any means still exist by which so
much valuable information may be rescued from the grasp of ignorance,
and preserved to the pages of natural history."

The old man lent an attentive ear to this melancholy appeal, and
apparently he reflected on every side of the important question, before
he would presume to answer.

"I take it, friend physicianer," he at length gravely replied, "that the
chances of life and death, in your particular case, depend altogether on
the will of Providence, as it may be pleased to manifest it, through
the accursed windings of Indian cunning. For my own part, I see no great
difference in the main end to be gained, inasmuch as it can matter no
one greatly, yourself excepted, whether you live or die."

"Would you account the fall of a corner-stone, from the foundations of
the edifice of learning, a matter of indifference to contemporaries
or to posterity?" interrupted Obed. "Besides, my aged associate," he
reproachfully added, "the interest, that a man has in his own existence,
is by no means trifling, however it may be eclipsed by his devotion to
more general and philanthropic feelings."

"What I would say is this," resumed the trapper, who was far from
understanding all the subtle distinctions with which his more learned
companion so often saw fit to embellish his discourse; "there is but one
birth and one death to all things, be it hound, or be it deer; be it
red skin, or be it white. Both are in the hands of the Lord, it being as
unlawful for man to strive to hasten the one, as impossible to prevent
the other. But I will not say that something may not be done to put the
last moment aside, for a while at least, and therefore it is a question,
that any one has a right to put to his own wisdom, how far he will go,
and how much pain he will suffer, to lengthen out a time that may have
been too long already. Many a dreary winter and scorching summer has