804 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
strongest tendencies may be—and so upon whichever party, 
man or woman, the lot of greatest physical strength and 
activity should fall, the responsibility of all that species of 
exertion must devolve. 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 office 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 had 
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 
