40 NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY 



snow." " Well, really, this was an unpleasant sort of adventure 

 enough, but let me suggest that you do very wrong to remember 

 it with such blood-thirsty feelings." He shook his head with a 

 dogged and determined air, and rode off as if anxious to escape a 

 lecture. 



A little sketch of our hunter may perhaps not be uninterest- 

 ing, as he will figure somewhat in the following pages, being one 

 of the principal persons of the party, the chief hunter, and a man 

 upon whose sagacity and knowledge of the country we all in a 

 great measure depended. 



In heisht he is several inches over six feet, of a spare but re- 

 markably strong and vigorous frame, and a countenance of 

 almost infantile simplicity and openness. In disposition he is 

 mild and affable, but when roused to indignation, his keen eyes 

 glitter and flash, the muscles of his large mouth work convul- 

 sively, and he looks the very impersonation of the spirit of evil. 

 He is implacable in anger, and bitter in revenge ; never forgetting 

 a kindness, but remembering an injury with equal tenacity. 

 Such is the character of our hunter, and none who have known 

 him as I have, will accuse me of delineating from fancy. His na- 

 tive place is Connecticut, which he left about twelve years ago, 

 and has ever since been engaged in roaming through the bound- 

 less plains and rugged mountains of the west, often enduring the 

 extremity of famine and fatigue, exposed to dangers and vicissi- 

 tudes of every kind, all for the paltry, and often uncertain pit- 

 tance of a Rocky Mountain hunter. He says he is now tired of 

 this wandering and precarious life, and when he shall be enabled 

 to save enough from his earnings to buy a farm in Connecticut, 

 he intends to settle down a quiet tiller of the soil, and enjoy the 

 sweets of domestic felicity. But this day will probably never 

 arrive. Even should he succeed in realizing a little fortune, and 

 the farm should be taken, the monotony and tameness of the 

 scene will weary his free spirit ; he will often sigh for a habi- 



