88 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
Audubon! Audubon! Delightful name! Ah, do I not 
remember well the hold it took upon my young imagination 
when I heard the fragmented rumor from afar, that there was 
a strange man abroad then, who lived in the wilderness with 
only his dog and gun, and did nothing day by day, but foiow 
up the birds; watching every thing they might do; keeping 
in sight of them all the time, wherever they went, while light 
lasted; then sleeping beneath the tree where they perched, 
to be up and follow them again with the dawn, until he knew 
every habit and way that belonged to them. That when he 
was satisfied, he would shoot them in some manner, so as not 
to tear their plumage, and then sitting down on the mossy 
roots of an oak, and with nobody to connoisseur for him but 
his wise looking dog, and the squirrel that stamped and 
scolded at him from the limbs above, would draw such 
marvelous pictures of birds as the world never saw before! 
Oh, what a happy, happy being that strange man must be, 
I used to think; and what a strong and brave one, too, to 
sleep out among the panthers and wild cats, where the Indian 
whoop was heard—trusting only to his single arm and his 
faithful dog. I loved to speculate about that dog. He must 
be larger than my dog “Milo,” I thought, and just about as 
gentle and true, but a little more knowing. How I envied 
him the happiness of such a master and such a life. 
As for the master, what magical conjurations of a charmed 
fancy I loved to associate with him. He must be noble and 
good, and wear such lofty calmness upon his brow. I had 
an ideal of physical perfection, and below it could not bear to 
conceive tnat so heroic a philosopher could fall. 
What a martyr-spirit his must be; and what a holy enthu- 
siasm leads him on through tangled swamps, where the cougar 
yelled, alligators roared, and hideous serpents parted, with 
their wavy spotted lengths, the green scum of stagnant pools; 
up difficult mountains, where the rattle-snake sprung its 
deadly alarum amidst the mossy fissures of the crumbling 
