ins as this child, 'ee'll be
glad to get yur teeth over wuss chawin's than wolf-meat; see if 'ee
don't, young fellur."

"Man-meat, I reckin?"

"Ay, that's what Rube means."

"Boyees!" said Rube, not heeding the remark, and apparently in good
humour, now that he was satisfying his appetite, "what's the nassiest
thing, leavin' out man-meat, any o' 'ees iver chawed?"

"Woman-meat, I reckin."

"'Ee chuckle-headed fool! yur needn't be so peert now, showin' yur
smartness when 'tain't called for nohow."

"Wal, leaving out man-meat, as you say," remarked one of the hunters, in
answer to Rube's question, "a muss-rat's the meanest thing I ever set
teeth on."

"I've chawed sage-hare--raw at that," said a second, "an' I don't want
to eat anything that's bitterer."

"Owl's no great eatin'," added a third.

"I've ate skunk," continued a fourth; "an' I've ate sweeter meat in my
time."

"Carrajo!" exclaimed a Mexican, "what do you think of monkey? I have
dined upon that down south many's the time."

"Wal, I guess monkey's but tough chawin's; but I've sharpened my teeth
on dry buffler hide, and it wa'n't as tender as it mout 'a been."

"This child," said Rube, after the rest had given in their experience,
"leavin' monkey to the beside, have ate all them critturs as has been
named yet. Monkey he hain't, bein' as thur's none o' 'em in these
parts. It may be tough, or it mayn't; it may be bitter, an' it mayn't,
for what I knows to the contrairywise; but, oncest on a time, this
niggur chawed a varmint that wa'n't much sweeter, if it wur as sweet."

"What was it, Rube?"

"What was it?" asked several in a breath, curious to know what the old
trapper could have eaten more unpalatable than the viands already named.

"'Twur turkey-buzzart, then; that's what it wur."

"Turkey-buzzard!" echoed everyone.

"'Twa'n't any thin' else."

"Wagh? that was a stinkin' pill, an' no mistake."

"That beats me all hollow."

"And when did ye eat the buzzard, old boy?" asked one, suspecting that
there might be a story connected with this feat of the earless trapper.

"Ay! tell us that, Rube; tell us!" cried several.

"Wal," commenced Rube, after a moment's silence, "'twur about six yeern
ago, I wur set afoot on the Arkansaw, by the Rapahoes, leastwise two
hunder mile below the Big Timmer. The cussed skunks tuk hoss, beaver,
an' all. He! he!" continued the speaker with a chuckle; "he! he! they
mout 'a did as well an' let ole Rube