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.
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