A Thousand-Mile Walk 
weather to which he had always been accus- 
tomed. But in speaking of animals, he at once 
became enthusiastic and told many stories of 
hairbreadth escapes, in the woods about his 
house, from bears, hungry alligators, wounded 
deer, etc. “And now,” said he, forgetting in his 
kindness that I was from the hated North, 
“you must stay with me a few days. Deer are 
abundant. I will lend you a rifle and we’ll go 
hunting. I hunt whenever I wish venison, and 
I can get it about as easily from the woods 
near by as a shepherd can get mutton out of 
his flock. And perhaps we will see a bear, for 
they are far from scarce here, and there are 
some big gray wolves, too.” 
I expressed a wish to see some large alli- 
gators. “Oh, well,” said he, “I can take you 
where you will see plenty of those fellows, but 
they are not much to look at. I once got a good 
look at an alligator that was lying at the bottom 
of still, transparent water, and I think that his 
eyes were the most impressively cold and cruel 
of any animal I have seen. Many alligators go 
[am] 
