244 THE ADIRONDACK. 



second challenge. Taking their old station, they 

 started again. It would have done a jockey good to 

 have seen that stout frontier youth use his whip, and 

 beat his horse's ribs with his heels, and heard him 

 yell. But all would not do — that girl sat quietly 

 leaning over her steed's neck ; and with her low, clear 

 chirrup, and her sharp, well-planted blows inspired 

 the beaten animal with such courage and speed, that 

 he seemed to fly over the groand, and she came out 

 full as far ahead as before. The poor fellow had to 

 give up beaten, humiliating as it was, and the girl 

 with a smile of triumph, slipped the bridle from her 

 nag's head, and turned him loose in the fields to 

 graze. 



The mother, however, is the queen of all wood- 

 man's wives — ^but you must see her and hear her 

 talk^ to appreciate her character. If she will not 

 stump the coolest, most hackneyed man of the world 

 that ever faced a woman, I will acknowledge myself 

 to have committed a very grave error of judgment. 



Her husband's ^^ saple line^'' as she termed it, (sable 

 line,) that is line of trapping, is thirty miles long, and 

 he is often absent on it several days at a time. 



It is thirty miles through the woods to Boonville, 



