cheney's hound. 69 



I 



bold swim for life. Well ; let them pass : the cry 

 grows fainter and fainter; and they — the pursued 

 and the pursuer — are but an emblem of what is 

 going on in the civilized world from which I am 

 severed. Life may be divided into two parts — the 

 hunters and the hunted. It is an endless chase, 

 where the timid and the weak constantly fall by 

 the way. The swift racers come and go like sha- 

 dows on the vision ; and the cries of fear and of 

 victory swell on the ear and die away, only to give 

 place to another and another. Thus musing, I 

 pushed on ; — at length, we left the bed of the 

 stream, and began to climb amid broken rocks that 

 were piled in huge chaos, up and up, as far as the 

 eye could reach. My rifle became such a burden, 

 that I was compelled to leave it against a tree, 

 with a mark erected near by, to determine its lo- 

 cality. I had expected, from paintings I had seen 

 of this Pass, that I was to walk almost on a level 

 into a huge gap between two mountains, and look 

 up on the precipices that toppled heaven high above 

 me. But here was a world of rocks, overgrown with 

 trees and moss — over and under and between which 

 we were compelled to crawl and dive and work our 



