THE FORESTERS. 65 



Laden with skins, bis traps around him slung, 

 IVo dead rackoons across his shoulder hung; 

 Muskrats and 'possums in each hand he bore ; 

 A large brown otter trailed along the floor; 

 And as he soused them down with surly gloom, 

 The skunk's abhorred effluvia filled the room. (47) 

 44 Friends, how d'ye do 1 Well wife, how come you on I 

 How fare the calves f" " Why three of them are gone !" 

 M Three ! — Ah, these wolves ! they'll eat up house and 



hall ! 

 And have they killed the sheep]" "They have." "What, 



all?" 

 " Yes all." : : "I thought it would be so. 

 Well, now they're at an end let them go." 

 So said he whets his knife to skin his store, 

 VY hile heaps of red raw carrion fill the floor. 

 As morning dawned, our little skiff we trimmed, 

 And through the misty flood with vigor skimmed ; 

 Now, gliding smooth, we hail with songs the morn ; 

 Now, down white boiling breakers headlong borne, 

 Again enclosed the gray wood round us rise, 

 "We pass where Cross Lake green and stagnant lies, 

 And mark the snakes, amid their wat'ry way, 

 " ith head erect our dipping oars survey. 

 •Dead lie the lonely woods, and silent shore, 

 As Nature slept, and mankind were no more. 

 How drear ! how desolate to ear and eye ! 

 ™ hat awful solitudes around us lie ! 

 ►Sad were his fate, too dreadfully severe, 

 For life condemned to linger hopeless here ; 

 From such lone thoughts of gloomy exiled wo, 



E 



