" he said,
"are familiar; either you, or some other specimen of your class, is
known to me."

"I am the man you met in the woods east of the big river, and whom you
tried to persuade to line a yellow hornet to his nest: as if my eye was
not too true to mistake any other animal for a honey-bee, in a clear
day! We tarried together a week, as you may remember; you at your toads
and lizards, and I at my high-holes and hollow trees: and a good job we
made of it between us! I filled my tubs with the sweetest honey I ever
sent to the settlements, besides housing a dozen hives; and your bag was
near bursting with a crawling museum. I never was bold enough to put
the question to your face, stranger, but I reckon you are a keeper of
curiosities?"[*]

[*] The pursuit of a bee-hunter is not uncommon, on the skirts of
American society, though it is a little embellished here. When the
bees are seen sucking the flowers, their pursuer contrives to
capture one or two. He then chooses a proper spot, and suffering
one to escape, the insect invariably takes its flight towards the
hive. Changing his ground to a greater or less distance according
to circumstances, the bee-hunter then permits another to escape.
Having watched the courses of the bees, which is technically
called lining, he is enabled to calculate the intersecting angle
of the two lines, which is the hive.

"Ay! that is another of their wanton wickednesses!" exclaimed the
trapper. "They slay the buck, and the moose, and the wild cat, and all
the beasts that range the woods, and stuffing them with worthless rags,
and placing eyes of glass into their heads, they set them up to be
stared at, and call them the creatur's of the Lord; as if any mortal
effigy could equal the works of his hand!"

"I know you well," returned the Doctor, on whom the plaint of the old
man produced no visible impression. "I know you," offering his hand
cordially to Paul; "it was a prolific week, as my herbal and catalogues
shall one day prove. Ay, I remember you well, young man. You are of
the class, mammalia; order, primates; genus, homo; species, Kentucky."
Pausing to smile at his own humour, the naturalist proceeded. "Since
our separation, I have journeyed far, having entered into a compactum or
agreement with a certain man named Ishmael--"

"Bush!" interrupted the impatient and reckless Paul. "By the Lord,
trapper, this is the very blood-letter that Ellen t