A CANADIAN HALF-SHE ED. 71 



to make up his absolute necessaries. He encamps on 

 the borders of civilization, for a few weeks, making 

 and peddling baskets, and then puts back to his cabin 

 by the lakes. He has two or three dogs, with which 

 he drives the deer into the lakes, and catches them 

 with his canoe in the summer, and with which h0 

 destroys them on the crust in the winter, a manner of 

 taking them which every true hunter holds in pro- 

 found abhorrence. He is a stupid, lazy, shiftless 

 specimen of humanity, without skill or sagacity in 

 any department of a woodman's life. 



"Squire," said my guide, as we approached the 

 spot where the cabin of the half-breed once stood, 

 " the fellow that owned this clearin' has been gone a 

 great many years, and it was a drubbin 7 1 gave him 

 that scared him away. He was meaner'n pusley, and 

 the way I made him understand my feelins' in regard 

 to him, was this : I and old Pete Meigs" (of whom 

 more hereafter) " had been down by the Saranac 

 Lakes, beatin' up a moose pen. We got four moose 

 that time, which is more'n was got at any one time, by 

 any hunters ever I hearn tell on. Well, we were 

 travellin' home on our snow-shoes. This pond lay in 

 our way, and we crossed it down by where our shan- 



