STUDYING NATURE. 293 



made life a desolation to me. I wanted a rifle, and a 

 knowledge of the use of it. 



" ' Well, at last I had earned money enough to 

 buy one, and a good one it was, too. I carried it for 

 five and twenty years, and 'twas because I lost it, by 

 accident, in the deej water, in the Saranac, that I 

 don't carry it now. When I became the owner of a 

 rifle, I worked on to procure other things needful to a 

 hunter, and then I gave up work, and took to the 

 woods. I spent days, and weeks in the forest, studyin' 

 nater, and the ways of wild animals, and the forest 

 signs, and followin' the trails of wild beasts. I 

 studied to larn, as boys at school study books. I 

 wanted to become wiser in the forest ways, than the 

 Ingens were. I longed, with a burnin' longin', for 

 vengeance on their accursed tribes. It; was my whole 

 thought, and aim, and object, in life. The war had 

 passed away. The government was at peace with the 

 Ingens, but my war with them, had not yet begun. 

 I was young, scarce yet nineteen, and the years of my 

 life were to be one long, undyin' warfare against 'em. 

 The faces of them eight Ingens, that danced around 

 our burnin' dwellin', on that horrible night, were al- 

 ways before me. I could have picked them out from 



