304 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



strongest tendencies may be — and so upon ■wMcliever party, 

 man or woman, the lot of greatest physical strength and 

 activity should fall, the responsibility of all that species of 

 exertion must devolre. Thus they both labor to the same 

 end, through each other, and are unified in purpose and 

 results !" 



" This then is your reason for assuming the oflSce of com- 

 missary! You are physically strongest, and have assumed 

 the burden of the way?" 



"He is strong in his own way, young man !" she answered 

 drily — "But look ! there is our little home !" 



I had become so interested in this strange conversation — 

 stranger even than the circumstances which had brought me 

 into such relations — that I had not noticed what the direction 

 was, or what the peculiarities of the ground we were passing 

 over. I now looked around me, and even if my vision liad 

 not been sharpened by observing a sort of cynical smile upon 

 her face as she pronounced the last words — I think my own 

 memory would have been sufficient to compel me to recognize 

 the scene, amidst the " Archipelago of motts," in which the 

 deer had fallen, and from which I had fled so ignominiously 

 — as it was turning out. * 



There was the very spot where I had left the deer, and the 

 bones of the refuse parts lay strewed around upon the dank 

 and bloody grass. Some wolves, which had been squatting in 

 the neighborhood of their feast, made off as we approached. 

 I looked in the direction in which the woman had pointed, 

 but could perceive nothing like a house. She smiled at my 

 puzzled gaze of inquiry into her face. 



" You are back again, you see ! I took off that deer's skin 

 myself, and you ate some of its meat. The horse had more 

 wit than the rider — ^you perceive he was coming direct !" 



"Yes!" said I dolorously, as we were passing on — "but 

 where is the house of which you spoke?" for my bruised 



