IN HIGH SPIRITS. 323 



an' I bleeve that leetle gun remembers that night as 

 well as I do, an' ud go herself at the skunks even ef 

 thur wa'n't no old Jake Hawken behint her to pull the 

 trigger." 



Here the hunter ended his narrative. 



The remainder of the night was devoted to repose, 

 and it was well on towards noon the next day when 

 the hunters left the camp and continued their journey. 



We do not propose to chronicle all the adventures 

 which befell our travellers on their way to Fort Ver- 

 milion. They had several exciting encounters with 

 bears, which, however, uniformly ended in a victory 

 for the trappers ; and once or twice they narrowly 

 escaped halving their canoe dashed to pieces against 

 floating logs, borne downwards by the current. These 

 were the ordinary incidents of travel, and as they re- 

 sembled in all respects similar occurrences already 

 described, there is little use in detailing them for the 

 reader. 



The success which had attended their hunt even thus 

 early, and the unlooked-for good fortune which made 

 them heirs to the valuable stock of furs secreted in the 

 cave by the Indian whose tragic end old Jake had wit- 

 nessed, rendered our trappers careless of prosecuting 

 their journey for the present beyond Fort Vermilion. 



That post was now but one hundred miles distant, 

 and each day the hunters felt that their protracted 

 journey came nearer and nearer to its termination. 



They were therefore in high spirits, and looked for- 



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