18 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 



of perpetual conjecture, increased by the very 

 circumstance which appeared to render it impro- 

 bable it should ever be solved ; for this singular . 

 being maintained a silence as unbroken as though 

 he were dumb, through which he was commonly 

 known as the " Silent Hunter." 



This appearance of sullen reserve distanced all, 

 and those who otherwise would have compas- 

 sionated his sorrows, or perhaps even willingly 

 have shared his singular fortunes, now denounced 

 him as a ruthless and reckless adventurer ; very 

 different would have been their judgment, could 

 they have penetrated the enigma of his solitary 

 life, and known how cruelly scarred had been a 

 heart once quickened by the kindest and live- 

 Hest emotions. Misfortune, which at one dread 

 stroke had deprived him of the realization of 

 happiness on earth, seemed to have deadened 

 every human hope and sympathy, and crushed 

 every social instinct within his heart. 



The son of obscure emigrants from the Old 

 World, his first unhappiness was to be left an 

 orphan at an early age. The next, to be ap- 

 prenticed to a farmer in North Carolina, a miser- 

 able miser, who not only subjected the poor 

 boy to deprivations and the most arduous toils, 

 but proved a traitor to the conditions of the in- 

 dentures by which he was bound. These in- 

 cluded the privilege of receiving a general school 



