166 MOVING BACK FROM CIVILIZATION. 



upon the same general theory, as we do the society to which 

 we have been accustomed ; and they plunge alone into 

 the one with quite as much zest as we do into the other, in 

 the pursuit of excitement. Here is Cullen, now, who has 

 spent more time alone in the wilderness than almost any 

 other man outside of the trappers and hunters of the prairies 

 of the West, I appeal to him if it is not rather a love of 

 adventure than of nature which sends him on his solitary 

 rambles in the forests ?" 



" May be the Judge is right," replied Cullen, as he rubbed 

 the shavings of plug tobacco in the palm of his left hand with 

 the ball of his right, while he held his short black pipe be- 

 tween his teeth, preparatory to filling it, " may be the Judge is 

 right, I rather think he is, and let me tell you I've met with 

 some queer adventures, as you call them, in these woods too ; 

 some that I wouldn't have gone out arter if I'd known what 

 they were to 've been afore I started. I've been movin' back 

 from what you call civilization for five and twenty year, 

 because I didn't like to live where people were too thick, 

 and where there was nothing but tame life around me. I've 

 a land of liking for the deer and moose, and havn't any ill 

 will towards, now and then, a wolf or a painter. I like a 

 rifle better than I do the handles of a plow, and I'd rayther 

 bring down a ten-pronger than to raise an acre of corn, and 

 I don't care who knows it. There's a place in the world for 

 just such a man as I am yet, and will be till these old woods 

 are gone. Do you see that ?" said he, rolling up his panta- 

 loons to his knees, revealing a deep scar on both sides of 



