ion
with which he listened to this proposal. The exercise he had taken, and
the sharpness of the wind, proved excellent stimulants; and Paul himself
had hardly been in better plight to do credit to the trapper's cookery,
than was the lover of nature, when the grateful invitation met his
ears. Indulging in a small laugh, which his exertions to repress reduced
nearly to a simper, he took the indicated seat by the old man's side,
and made the customary dispositions to commence his meal without further
ceremony.

"I should be ashamed of my profession," he said, swallowing a morsel of
the hump with evident delight, slily endeavouring at the same time to
distinguish the peculiarities of the singed and defaced skin, "I ought
to be ashamed of my profession, were there beast, or bird, on the
continent of America, that I could not tell by some one of the many
evidences which science has enlisted in her cause. This--then--the
food is nutritious and savoury--a mouthful of your corn, friend, if you
please?"

Paul, who continued eating with increasing industry, looking askaunt not
unlike a dog when engaged in the same agreeable pursuit, threw him his
pouch, without deeming it at all necessary to suspend his own labours.

"You were saying, friend, that you have many ways of telling the
creatur'?"--observed the attentive trapper.

"Many; many and infallible. Now, the animals that are carnivorous are
known by their incisores."

"Their what?" demanded the trapper.

"The teeth with which nature has furnished them for defence, and in
order to tear their food. Again--"

"Look you then for the teeth of this creatur'," interrupted the
trapper, who was bent on convincing a man who had presumed to enter into
competition with himself, in matters pertaining to the wilds, of gross
ignorance; "turn the piece round and find your inside-overs."

The Doctor complied, and of course without success; though he profited
by the occasion to take another fruitless glance at the wrinkled hide.

"Well, friend, do you find the things you need, before you can pronounce
the creatur' a duck or a salmon?"

"I apprehend the entire animal is not here?"

"You may well say as much," cried Paul, who was now compelled to pause
from pure repletion; "I will answer for some pounds of the fellow,
weighed by the truest steel-yards west of the Alleghanies. Still you may
make out to keep soul and body together, with what is left," reluctantly
eyeing a piece large