No doubt, ye are both young, and
filled with the pride of your strength and manhood, and I dare say you
thought it only needful to cut the thongs, to leave you masters of the
ground. But he, that has seen much, is apt to think much. Had I run
like a bustling woman to have given you freedom, these hags of the
Siouxes would have seen the same, and then where would you both have
found yourselves? Under the tomahawk and the knife, like helpless and
outcrying children, though gifted with the size and beards of men. Ask
our friend, the bee-hunter, in what condition he finds himself to
struggle with a Teton boy, after so many hours of bondage; much less
with a dozen merciless and bloodthirsty squaws!"
"Truly, old trapper," returned Paul, stretching his limbs, which were
by this time entirely released, and endeavouring to restore the
suspended circulation, "you have some judgmatical notions in these
matters. Now here am I, Paul Hover, a man who will give in to few at
wrestle or race, nearly as helpless as the day I paid my first visit
to the house of old Paul, who is dead and gone,--the Lord forgive him
any little blunders he may have made while he tarried in Kentucky! Now
there is my foot on the ground, so far as eye-sight has any virtue,
and yet it would take no great temptation to make me swear it didn't
touch the earth by six inches.
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