land. He then collected a few chiefs of the nearest tribe, dealt out
his rum, tobacco, blankets, wampum, and gunpowder, got twelve Indians
to make their marks on a bit of deer-skin, and returned to his employer
with a map, a field-book, and a deed, by which the Indian title was
"extinguished." The surveyor received his compensation, and set off on
a similar excursion, for a different employer, and in another
direction. Nick got his reward, too, and was well satisfied with the
transaction. This he afterwards called "sellin' beaver when he all run
away."

Furnished with the necessary means, Captain Willoughby now "sued out
his patent," as it was termed, in due form. Having some influence, the
affair was soon arranged; the grant was made by the governor in
council, a massive seal was annexed to a famous sheet of parchment, the
signatures were obtained, and "Willoughby's Patent" took its place on
the records of the colony, as well as on its maps. We are wrong as
respects the latter particular; it did not take _its_ place, on
the maps of the colony, though it took _a_ place; the location
given for many years afterwards, being some forty or fifty miles too
far west. In this peculiarity there was nothing novel, the surveys of
all new regions being liable to similar trifling mistakes. Thus it was,
that an estate, lying within five-and-twenty miles of the city of New
York, and in which we happen to have a small interest at this hour, was
clipped of its fair proportions, in consequence of losing some miles
that run over obtrusively into another colony; and, within a short
distance of the spot where we are writing, a "patent" has been squeezed
entirely out of existence, between the claims of two older grants.

No such calamity befell "Willoughby's Patent," however. The land was
found, with all its "marked or _blazed_ trees," its "heaps of