174 WILD SPOKTS IN THE FAR WEST. 



ican rifles, with their shot-beUs hanging on them, 

 leaning in a corner, showed that the party, if not 

 regular woodsmen, were at least out on a shooting 

 excursion. A half empty whiskey-bottle stood on the 

 table, and after a short conversation, I learnt that the 

 little fat man, with sparkling eyes and ruby nose, 

 sitting enjoying himself in the corner, and making 

 constant love to the whiskey-bottle, was Magnus the 

 distiller, who, with a couple of friends, was on his way 

 to the swamps from whence we came, for the sake of 

 buffalo hunting. The little man drank my health, and 

 amused me very much with his drolleries. He could 

 think of nothing but buffaloes, swore only by buffaloes, 

 made bets in buffalo-skins, estimated every thing by 

 their value, and tormented the small modicum of un- 

 derstanding which the whiskey had left in his brains, 

 to devise how he should be able to transport at the 

 greatest advantage the skins of all the buffaloes he 

 meant to kill. 



It was all in vain that I attemjited to give him an 

 idea of the almost impenetrable swamps, of the diffi- 

 culty of finding the few buffaloes which were there, 

 and of the almost impossibility when found of bringing 

 their skins or any other part away ; his countenance 

 bore the same joyous, amicable expression as before. 

 "When I had finished my remarks, he handed me the 

 bottle, which I put to my lips without drinking. In 

 a voice trembling with emotion, he assured me that he 

 was prepared to venture every thing, even life itself, 

 for the sake of killing a buffalo, and when life was at 

 stake, who could take into consideration a few insig- 



