he circuit of the whole family.

"Come, trapper," continued Ishmael, in a tone of better humour, like a
man who feels that he has triumphed, "neither of us, I reckon, has ever
had much to do with title-deeds, or county clerks, or blazed trees;
therefore we will not waste words on fooleries. You ar' a man that has
tarried long in this clearing, and now I ask your opinion, face to face,
without fear or favour, if you had the lead in my business, what would
you do?"

The old man hesitated, and seemed to give the required advice with deep
reluctance. As every eye, however, was fastened on him, and whichever
way he turned his face, he encountered a look riveted on the lineaments
of his own working countenance, he answered in a low, melancholy, tone--

"I have seen too much mortal blood poured out in empty quarrels, to
wish ever to hear an angry rifle again. Ten weary years have I sojourned
alone on these naked plains, waiting for my hour, and not a blow have I
struck ag'in an enemy more humanised than the grizzly bear."

"Ursus horribilis," muttered the Doctor.

The speaker paused at the sound of the other's voice, but perceiving it
was no more than a sort of mental ejaculation, he continued in the same
strain--

"More humanised than the grizzly hear, or the panther of the Rocky
Mountains; unless the beaver, which is a wise and knowing animal, may
be so reckoned. What would I advise? Even the female buffaloe will fight
for her young!"

"It never then shall be said, that Ishmael Bush has less kindness for
his children than the bear for her cubs!"

"And yet this is but a naked spot for a dozen men to make head in, ag'in
five hundred."

"Ay, it is so," returned the squatter, glancing his eye towards his
humble camp; "but something might be done, with the wagons and the
cotton-wood."

The trapper shook his head incredulously, and pointed across the rolling
plain in the direction of the west, as he answered--

"A rifle would send a bullet from these hills into your very
sleeping-cabins; nay, arrows from the thicket in your rear would keep
you all burrowed, like so many prairie dogs: it wouldn't do, it wouldn't
do. Three long miles from this spot is a place, where as I have often
thought in passing across the desert, a stand might be made for days and
weeks together, if there were hearts and hands ready to engage in the
bloody work."

Another low, deriding laugh passed among the young men, announcing, in
a manner s