A Hunter's Wish. 131 



tlic Hudson from its mouth, away down bj the sea, — 

 to have floated upon its waters, as they rolled then so 

 solitary through the Highlands, and seen the painters 

 and catamounts watchin' me from the cliffs, and the 

 deer starin' at me from the level shore, — to have 

 paddled up old Champlain and down the great St. 

 Lawrence, and then to have skirted old Ontario, away 

 up to where Niagara pours its mighty flood, thun- 

 derin' and shakin' the earth, as it rushes down from 

 the beetling cliffs, — to have coasted Lake Erie, and 

 the other great seas that lay away out west,— to have 

 crossed over to the Mississippi, and floated on its 

 broad bosom back to the ocean ! That would have 

 been a trip, Squire, worth a lifetime, and a thing for a 

 man to tell his children of, of a Avinter's night, when 

 he was old. I've oflen thought I'd like to leave the 

 settlements and highways of life, even now, and stray 

 away off among the solitudes of the Rocky Mountains, 

 and the vast regions beyond them, and spend a few 

 years beyond the footprints of a white man. I'd like 

 to trap the beavers, and skrimmage with the grizzly 

 bears, and hunt the elk, and foUer the other sports 

 that belong to such a wild and far-off region. Old 

 Pete Meigs and I often talked of such a trip, — -but the 



