with his sharp
teeth, and committing as much havoc in the forest as if he had been
armed with the woodman's axe; others sported in the eddies. Racoons
sat in the tree-tops; the marten, the black fox, and the wolf prowled
in the woods in quest of prey; mountain sheep and goats browsed on the
rocky ridges; and badgers peeped from their holes.

Here, too, the wild horse sprang snorting and dishevelled from his
mountain retreats--with flourishing mane and tail, spanking step, and
questioning gaze--and thundered away over the plains and valleys,
while the rocks echoed back his shrill neigh. The huge, heavy,
ungainly elk, or moose-deer, _trotted_ away from the travellers with
speed equal to that of the mustang: elks seldom gallop; their best
speed is attained at the trot. Bears, too, black, and brown, and
grizzly, roamed about everywhere.

So numerous were all these creatures that on one occasion the hunters
of the party brought in six wild horses, three bears, four elks, and
thirty red-deer; having shot them all a short distance ahead of the
main body, and almost without diverging from the line of march. And
this was a matter of everyday occurrence--as it had need to be,
considering the number of mouths that had to be filled.

The feathered tribes were not less numerous. Chief among these were
eagles and vultures of uncommon size, the wild goose, wild duck, and
the majestic swan.

In the midst of such profusion the trappers spent a happy time of it,
when not molested by the savages, but they frequently lost a horse or
two in consequence of the expertness of these thievish fellows. They
often wandered, however, for days at a time without seeing an Indian,
and at such times they enjoyed to the full the luxuries with which a
bountiful God had blessed these romantic regions.

Dick Varley was almost wild with delight. It was his first excursion
into the remote wilderness; he was young, healthy, strong, and
romantic; and it is a question whether his or his dog's heart, or that
of the noble wild horse he bestrode, bounded most with joy at
the glorious sights and sounds and influences by which they were
surrounded. It would have been perfection, had it not been for the
frequent annoyance and alarms caused by the Indians.

Alas! alas! that we who write and read about those wondrous scenes
should have to condemn our own species as the most degraded of all the
works of the Creator there! Yet so it is. Man, exercising his reason