THE GRAVE OF THE SILENT HUNTER. 193 



quered or conqueror could agree to part. Here the game 

 lingered too, and still lingers, and must continue to linger for 

 many a year to come ; though what was once sole possession 

 of the fierce, swarthy Shawanee, is now periodically intruded 

 upon by the pale sons of the lordly planters of the tobacco 

 lands to the south, who are accustomed to make up, yearly, 

 "camping parties" to hunt in this region for a few weeks 

 during the fall of the year. 



Along the southern border of the rougher part of this 

 wilderness, there are a few cabins of the old race of hunters, 

 who belong to the times of Boone, and still boast that they con- 

 tinue to "hold their own," which means, being still "out of 

 sight of the smoke of a neighbor's chimney !" It would 

 indeed be rather a difficult feat to see this same smoke, it 

 must be confessed, since the nearest neighbor is probably 

 twelve miles ofi*, and both their huts embosomed in steep 



crags 



I have never been a lover of, what they term so expres- 

 sively in the West, "a crowd," particularly on hunting excur- 

 sions ; the chief charm of which has consisted in the entire 

 separation from my race, permitted for the time, and the 

 solitude that invites a refreshing communion with the primi- 

 tive forms of the natural world. Many's the time have I 

 forgotten to shoot, and let the stately deer go by unscathed, 

 while I stood breathless to admire its graceful action, and 

 the charming unity of its antlered presence here, with the 

 swaying of old boughs and lapsing leap of streams. With 

 such moods upon me, I could not bear to hurt the lovely 

 creatures ; it seemed as though a voice of our mother nature 

 chid me : " Shame ! shame ! to slay the beautiful !" 



But I was usually as keen a hunter as ever startled the 

 ancient echoes with the rifle's shrilly ring. My boon com- 

 panion at this time, some twelve years ago, was like myself, 

 named Charles, or Charlie M., as he was everywhere called, 



from his merry, reckless, jovial character. Now Charlie tvas a 



13 



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