224 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



One morning as the sentinels around the fort were changed, a 

 stranger came up to the relief, was recognised, and then sauntered 

 into the camp, — a huge, rough, talkative fellow, a hunter by trade, 

 and now following the camp, like many others, half for the fun 

 and half for the gain, a sort of cousin to Mike, not in blood, but 

 in position. Mike was a little more gentle and observant, Potter 

 a little rougher and jollier, more rollicksome, hailing everybody, 

 singing wherever there was eating and drinking, and running every 

 danger to be present at a fight. His leathern suit, rifle, and knife, 

 were the prominent features of his dress, and a keen eye and huge 

 mouth and limb, the first points noticed in his person. 



Mike knew him, and recognised him with a smile and a 

 question — 



" Up ? " 



" No, down." 



"S'Gustine?" 



" Wall, you bet." 



" Seen Injins ? " 



"Stacks of 'em — slinkin' about like coots on the S' Johns. 

 Squaws, too ; somethin's up — reckon they 're agoin' to purr a little ; 

 sent a letter to the old man. Who's your old man here now?" 

 continued the hunter, pulling out, as he talked, from his bullet- 

 pouch at his belt a little roll of birch-bark ; " took 'em an all-fired 

 time to write it, and had a big pow-wow to read it when wrote. 

 Scissors ! I saw some good-looking squaws at that camp. Came 

 as near being tuck that time as ever I did; felt my hayar jist fallin' 

 off; thought I was wolfs meat that run. Yer see I 'd been dodgin' 

 tracks all day, so 's to git to this clearin' when night cum on. I 

 sez to myself, ' Go it, boots !' and made a bee line. Fust thing I 

 knowed I had walked right into an Injin camp. No fire — fire 'd gone 

 out — cuss the fire ! Pitched slam-bang over a red-skin asleep, and 

 in a niinnit there was forty atop me. 'Hold up!' sez I; 'I'm 

 Injin, don't you know me ? I 'm come with a letter from the great 

 white chief,' and I held up an old bit of paper that Jake had given 

 me at S' Gustine, with the writin' on about bringing some stores. 

 They swallered the bait, and I sot there half an hour readin' off in 

 Injin the cussedest lot of nonsense you ever heard tell on. Then 



