e their prey."

"You have then seen the animals you mention!" exclaimed Dr. Battius,
who had now been thrown out of the conversation quite as long as his
impatience could well brook, and who approached the subject with his
tablets ready opened, as a book of reference. "Can you tell me if what
you encountered was of the species, ursus horribilis--with the ears,
rounded--front, arquated--eyes--destitute of the remarkable supplemental
lid--with six incisores, one false, and four perfect molares--"

"Trapper, go on, for we are engaged in reasonable discourse,"
interrupted Ishmael; "you believe we shall see more of the robbers."

"Nay--nay--I do not call them robbers, for it is the usage of their
people, and what may be called the prairie law."

"I have come five hundred miles to find a place where no man can ding
the words of the law in my ears," said Ishmael, fiercely, "and I am
not in a humour to stand quietly at a bar, while a red-skin sits in
judgment. I tell you, trapper, if another Sioux is seen prowling around
my camp, wherever it may be, he shall feel the contents of old Kentuck,"
slapping his rifle, in a manner that could not be easily misconstrued,
"though he wore the medal of Washington,[*] himself. I call the man a
robber who takes that which is not his own."

[*] The American government creates chiefs among the western tribes,
and decorates them with silver medals hearing the impression of
the different presidents. That of Washington is the most prized.

"The Teton, and the Pawnee, and the Konza, and men of a dozen other
tribes, claim to own these naked fields."

"Natur' gives them the lie in their teeth. The air, the water, and the
ground, are free gifts to man, and no one has the power to portion them
out in parcels. Man must drink, and breathe, and walk,--and therefore
each has a right to his share of 'arth. Why do not the surveyors of the
States set their compasses and run their lines over our heads as well as
beneath our feet? Why do they not cover their shining sheep-skins with
big words, giving to the landholder, or perhaps he should be called
air holder, so many rods of heaven, with the use of such a star for a
boundary-mark, and such a cloud to turn a mill?"

As the squatter uttered his wild conceit, he laughed from the very
bottom of his chest, in scorn. The deriding but frightful merriment
passed from the mouth of one of his ponderous sons to that of the other,
until it had made t