210 A REMINISCENCE. 



told by an old Ohio pilot, whom I found in drifting down 

 that noble river in a pirogue, some five and twenty years 

 ago. We tied up one night by the side of another similar 

 craft, that had gone down ahead of us, the people on board 

 of which had landed and built a camp-fire, and erected their 

 tent. They were strangers to us, but in those days every- 

 body you met in the wilderness which skirted the Upper 

 Ohio was your friend, if you chose to regard him so. I 

 was a mere boy then, and was in company with my father 

 and three other gentlemen, who owned a township of laud 

 not far from Cincinnati ; that is not far now, considering 

 the difference in the mode of travelling between then and 

 now, and we were on our way to explore that township. 

 I did not regard it as of much value then, though it has 

 since brought a heap of money to its owners. We found 

 the company belonging to the other boat busily employed 

 in cooking a supper of venison and bear-meat, they having 

 in the course of the day killed two deer and a bear that 

 they found swimming the river. We were invited to help 

 ourselves ; an invitation which, being cordially given, we 

 as cordially accepted. We had been passing during most 

 of the day through unbroken forests, standing up in stately 

 majesty on both sides of the river, and stretching back 

 the Lord knows how far. After the darkness gathered, 

 the wolves made the wilderness vocal with their howling. 

 It was the first time I had ever heard them, and for that 

 matter the last, until since we have been in these woods : 

 but when that old fellow over the lake lifted up his voice 



