THE TEXAN HUNTRESS. 305 



limb the pain of which I had almost forgotten during the 

 excitement of our conversation was becoming most oppres- 

 sive, now that something had been said of home and rest. 



" Do you see that small mott ?" said she, pointing with her 

 rifle to a clump of large live oaks upon a bit of rising ground, 

 some half a mile ahead and near to what, I now perceived, 

 for the first time, to look like the heavy timbered bottom of a 

 stream of some size. 



" I see nothing but a mott !" said I impatiently. "Where 

 is the house ?" Her look brightened as she stepped on more 

 briskly by the side of my horse, who seemed to have scented 

 some familiar odor on the breeze, that quickened his step, for 

 his ear was now pricked forward, and his gait confident and 

 elate. 



" You shall see !" and she smiled. We soon reached the 

 mott, and passing beneath the long heavy drapery of mces 

 that descended from the low wide limbs of the live-oak, we 

 were at once in the dim cool twilight, which would have best 

 become that religious atmosphere in which the Druidical rites 

 were performed. In the midst of this, and almost hidden by 

 the gray fantastic drapery of the great tree above, I saw 

 indistinctly the appearance of palisading, that seemed to be 

 circular in form. Another moment she pushed aside the moss, 

 and we were at the door. It was a round hut, the walls of 

 which were composed of the small trunks of trees set perpen- 

 dicularly in the ground the interstices being filled with a 

 sort of cement of moss and mud. The roof was thatched 

 with bull-rushes, and the door was a frame of hickory saplings 

 stoutly interwoven. There was no sort of picketing about 

 it, as is usual in the country, to the small as well as large 

 ranchos. 



It seemed as if the shelter of the moss-draped oaks had 

 been deemed sufficient and so, indeed, it appeared to be, for 

 its appearance of entire security, like some wild nest of lonely 

 birds, was what first struck me as I saw it. The door was 



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