212 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



it meant to let us off, on the score of our being green-horns, 

 " who didn't know no better !" 



%< But fur a hunter, who ought'er know'd sumthin, to do 

 sich a thing it would'er been more 'an his life or his sleep 

 o' nights war worth !" 



Without pretending to dispute the metaphysical views of 

 Jabe, we proceeded as usual to avail ourselves of his really 

 uncommon skill as a guide and driver, while I made it a point 

 when we returned from the day's hunt, and when the evening 

 meal had given way to pipes and segars, to bring old Uncle 

 Jake round, by indirections, to the topic of which he was 

 most shy, while I was most eager, namely, the story of this 

 Bill Smith for the more I heard of him the more curious 

 the contradictions of his character appeared. 



In furnishing this relation in my own language, I wish it 

 expressly understood, that the whole is necessarily a sort of 

 scraps and patch narrative, the general tone of which I take 

 from Uncle Jake, but many of the important facts beside have 

 been obtained in conversation with some others of the elderly 

 survivors of that period, and who, too, had been associates 

 of Smith. Other circumstances of interest I picked up in 

 Washington City, and others more private, I gleaned in 

 North Carolina. I have taken the liberty to throw all these 

 things together, as to me "seemeth best," and as I have to 

 trust entirely to my memory, am liable to some inaccuracies ; 

 but such as it is, I offer you this account of Old Bill Smith. 



So far as I can make out the story, he seems to have been 

 an orphan boy, thrown upon the charities of the kind world 

 when quite young, by the sudden death of parents, whose only 

 child he was, and who had lately come over with a ship load 

 of other emigrants from Old England. 



It was not to be expected that a child with such an unfortu- 

 nate patronymic as Smith, was ever to be inquired after. 

 He was lost in the undistinguishable and innumerable multi- 

 tude of that great family. Of course the fate of the poor 



