A LONG Bow. 147 



and lied out of whole cloth. Let me tell you, Squire, 

 twenty odd year in the Shatagee country, and among 

 the Adirondacks, brings a man acquainted with a 

 good many curious facts to talk about, and he needn't 

 tell anything but the simple truth, to get up a pretty 

 tall name for shootin', as you say, with something be- 

 sides a rifle. Between old Pete Meigs and I, we never 

 stretched the honest truth. Any man that went with 

 him into the woods, might be sure that, strange as the 

 story might be the old man told, it was gospel truth. 

 He was proud of his knowledge of the ways of wild 

 animals, and the things he'd seen in the woods, and 

 he was principled agin deceivin 7 ' the man that trusted 

 him. No man ever came back, after a tramp with 

 him in the forest, that wasn't wiser, and that in solid 

 truths, than when he started. But in the settlements, 

 it was another thing. He didn't mind drawing a long 

 bow there, by way of stuffing the green ones, and the 

 way he did it was a thing to laugh at. 



"I mind once we was down to Plattsburgh, and" 

 stayed all night at a tavern there. In the evenin' 

 some fellows came in, that had been over to the 

 Shazee. They'd done pretty well, considerin' they 

 didn't know much about woodcraft, and the stories 



