got into the blaze of the camp fire and been burnt off
close to the stump. The stump, however, was pretty long, and, at the
time when the trappers became possessed of the animal, that appendage
was covered with a new growth of sparsely scattered and very stiff hair,
about three inches long, so that it resembled a gigantic bottle-brush.
Being a spirited animal, the horse had a lively bottle-brush, which was
grotesque, if it was nothing else.

This quadruped's own particular biped was Theodore Bertram. He had a
peculiar liking for it (as he had for everything picturesque), not only
on account of its good qualities--which were, an easy gait and a tender
mouth--but also because it was his own original animal, that of which he
had been deprived by the Indians, and which he had recaptured with
feelings akin to those of a mother who recovers a long-lost child.

We have said that the space of three weeks passed without anything
particular occurring to our trappers. This remark, however, must be
taken in a limited sense. Nothing particularly connected with the
thread of this story occurred; though very many and particularly
interesting things of a minor nature did occur during the course of that
period.

It would require a work equal in size to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"
to contain all the interesting things that were said and seen and done
on those prairies by these trappers within that brief space of time. A
conscientiously particular chronicler of events would have detailed the
route of each day, the latitude and longitude of each resting-place, the
very nature of the wood which composed the fuel of each fire. He would
have recorded that March Marston's little bay ran away with him--not, in
a general way, fifty or a hundred times, but exactly so many times,
specifying the concomitant circumstances of each separate time, and the
results of each particular race. He would have noted, with painful
accuracy, the precise number of times in which Theodore Bertram (being a
bad rider) fell off his horse, or was pitched off in consequence of that
quadruped putting its foot inadvertently into badger holes. He would
have mentioned that on each occasion the unfortunate artist blackened
his eye, or bled or skinned his nasal organ, and would have dilated
anatomically on the peculiar colour of the disfigured orb and the exact
amount of damage done to the bruised nose. He would have told not only
the general fact that bears, a