200 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
implicit faith under the patronage and guidance of this 
remarkable personage, we met with “sport” to satiety at 
last, within two days. 
We had gone out as usual on the third, and in a different 
direction from any we had yet tried. The spot assigned me 
for a stand by Jabe was by far the most remarkable I had 
yet seen. Five miles back, we had, with considerable diffi- 
culty, climbed up the steep side of a lofty and wooded ridge, 
that seemed much higher than any one we had yet seen. 
We had found the top, or comb, apparently level; though as 
we rode on, I observed the surrounding country to be either 
sinking beneath the feet of the ridge, or else the ridge wes 
rising rapidly above the country. Suddenly we came to what, 
I remember instantly reminded me of my boyish idea of the 
“jumping-off place!” The thing was so sudden that our 
horses reared backwards and snorted with affright. We were 
on the sheer verge of a precipice three hundred feet in depth, 
and the heavy forest below us looked almost like lichens 
clinging to stones, which were in reality considerable bluffs. 
It seemed as if the ancient basin of some ocean lay at our 
feet, stretching as far as the eye could reach on either hand 
and in front; while far away to the right, just under the 
rim of the horizon, we could distinguish the dark, heavy line 
of the wood bordering Green river; while to the left it shut 
down upon a blue serrated line of lofty Knobs. We were 
lost in wonderment, gazing over this extraordinary scene, 
when Charlie suddenly shouted, as he turned his head quickly: 
“ Hilloa, there !—you Jabe—where are you making off to, 
you tallow-skinned knave ?—you havn’t shown me my stand 
yet!” 
But Jabe either did, or pretended not to hear, and only 
increased the celerity of his gait, as he went crashing through 
the brush down the steep ridge-side without turning his head, 
ever. Charlie was highly enraged, and bestowed upon him 
sundry expletives not of the choicest selection, but which it is 
