bottom."

"It is a wide and deep water-course, and many sightly towns are there
growing on its banks," returned the trapper; "and yet it is but a
brook to the waters of the endless river."

"I call nothing a stream that a man can travel round," exclaimed the
ill-looking associate of the emigrant: "a real river must be crossed;
not headed, like a bear in a county hunt."[*]

[*] There is a practice, in the new countries, to assemble the men of
a large district, sometimes of an entire county, to exterminate
the beasts of prey. They form themselves into a circle of several
miles in extent, and gradually draw nearer, killing all before
them. The allusion is to this custom, in which the hunted beast is
turned from one to another.

"Have you been far towards the sun-down, friend?" interrupted the
emigrant, as if he desired to keep his rough companion as much as
possible out of the discourse. "I find it is a wide tract of clearing,
this, into which I have fallen."

"You may travel weeks, and you will see it the same. I often think the
Lord has placed this barren belt of prairie behind the States, to warn
men to what their folly may yet bring the land! Ay, weeks, if not
months, may you journey in these open fields, in which there is
neither dwelling nor habitation for man or beast. Even the savage
animals travel miles on miles to seek their dens; and yet the wind
seldom blows from the east, but I conceit the sound of axes, and the
crash of falling trees, are in my ears."