THE TEXAN HUNTRESS. 805 
limb—the pain of which I had almost forgotten during the 
excitement of our conversation—was becoming most oppres- 
give, now that something had been said of home and rest. 
“Do you see that small mott?” said she, pointing with her 
rifle to a clump of large live oaks upon a bit of rising ground, 
some half a mile ahead—and near to what, I now perceived, 
for the first time, to look like the heavy timbered bottom of a 
stream of some size. 
“T see nothing but a mott!”’ said I impatiently. “Where 
is the house?” Her look brightened as she stepped on more 
briskly by the side of my horse, who seemed to have scented 
some familiar odor on the breeze, that quickened his step, for 
his ear was now pricked forward, and his gait confident and 
elate. ‘ 
“You shall see!’ and she smiled. We soon reached the 
mott, and passing beneath the long heavy drapery of moss 
that descended from the low wide limbs of the live-oak, we 
were at once in the dim cool twilight, which would have b st 
become that religious atmosphere in which the Druidical rites 
were performed. In the midst of this, and almost hidden by 
the gray funtastic drapery of the great tree above,—I saw 
indistinctly the appearance of palisading, that seemed to be 
circular in form. Another moment she pushed aside the moss, 
and we were at the door. It was a round hut, the walls of 
__ which were composed of the small trunks of trees set perpen- 
dicularly in the ground—the interstices being filled with a 
sort of cement of moss and mud. The roof was thatched 
with bull-rushes, and the door was a frame of hickory saplings 
stoutly interwoven. There was no sort of picketing about 
it, as is usual in the country, to the small as well as large 
ranchos. 
It seemed as if the shelter of the moss-draped oaks had 
been deemed sufficient—and so, indeed, it appeared to be, for 
its appearance of entire security, like some wild nest of lonely 
birds, was what first struck me as I saw it. The door was 
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