224 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



would be snapped like reeds in the grasp of these stalwart 

 men ! 



For a moment, a dark shadow passed over me and I saw 

 myself embrowned and haggard, returning after years of 

 wild vicissitudes amidst the avowed and constant perils of 

 an Indian and guerilla-ravaged frontier, in what was then a 

 foreign and unreclaimed territory where my rifle and pis- 

 tols had been considered by me as necessary to the extension 

 of my daily life as my lungs and heart to find myself here 

 on my weary returning to the repose of civilization and 

 home, when I had gladly thrown aside those weapons, the 

 very sight of which had become painful to me, suddenly en- 

 trapped in the surroundings of a new peril, perhaps more 

 formidable than any I had met in my wanderings, and that 

 too without a weapon to my hand. 



The most terrible position in which you can place those 

 who habitually rely upon the use of weapons as an equiva- 

 lent for that physical prowess which they have failed to cul- 

 tivate, is to deprive them of them in circumstances of danger, 

 which otherwise they would have faced without hesitation ! 

 It is horrible. As it was, I was only more sharpened and 

 intensified in every faculty. 



In a reckless way I suddenly exclaimed 



" Boys, I love hunting. I have come down here to hunt 1 

 You must have plenty of game around you here, for you've 

 got woods enough I I've a notion to stay with you for a 

 day or two on this side, if there's any chance for game." 



" Plenty of it here, sir ! Plenty of it here 1" 



" What is it ? Bear and deer, of course ?" 



" O yes, bear and deer plenty wild cats painters and all 

 that!" 



" Well, I'm with you. That's the game for me. I won't 

 go over with the old man there," pointing to my sleeping 

 friend. " You look like good fellows lie wants me to go 

 over to the other side and fish with his boys, but I don't 

 like fishing when there's bear and wild-cat about it's a 



