treacherous ball may not put a close to his mortal career, and all his hard earnings pass into the hands of an enemy he ever hates with the bitterness of concentrated passion. With all these dangers, and hardships, and vicissitudes, your bona-fide trapper loves his calling, would not be content to follow any other, and is in general a rough, jolly, daredevil sort of fellow, who not unfrequently attains to the appointed age of man, and at last "goes under" with all the stoicism of a martyr.

Until within the last few days I had never seen a trapper; and, of course, he was to me and my companions as great an object of curiosity as would have been the aborigine himself. The four which we had joined, were genuine, boná-fide specimens of the mountaineers. Each had seen much service, had been more or less upon trapping expeditions, and one had actually grown grey in the hardy life of the wilderness. Each had trapped on his own hook and for others, and had scoured the country from the upper regions of Oregon to the Mexican latitudefrom the States to the Pacific ocean. They were acquainted with the land in every direction-knew all the regularly organized fur companies-all the trading forts and

stations and, consequently, were just the men to initiate us into all the peculiarities of the wilderness, all the mysteries of the trapper's life, and excite our marvellous propensities by their startling and wonderful tales.

VOL. I.

XX.

AN EXTRAORDINARY COON HUNT.

I'LL proceed, plus a few preliminaries, directly to a boy's Coon Hunt. It was our custom (Harry and I) to steal from our shed room two or three times a week, after the lights were out, and the governor's deep snore resounded through wainscot and hall, and hasten beyond the garden watling to the trysting spot, where we found faithful Peter and the dogs. These latter have been alluded to as hare catchers, and being the only ones obtainable, we had to lead them or none against opossums, racoons, and ground-hogs; but through Peter's encouragements, and a dexterity acquired in many encounters, the fiercely ripping coon could seldom escape their first united grab; yet sometimes, at night, we would shake down a large male fellow on swampy grounds, where availing

himself of briars and scattered pools, I've witnessed, with unflagging excitement, a war of fifteen minutes before the brave varmint was ours. No dogs lived that had more fun in fighting, and their constant victories had infused into them an obstinate courage rarely seen.

coons.

Of Pete, the good old nigger, I have to say, that he lived in a cabin with old Aunt Jenny. He raised many chickens, and made money by their sale, but the interesting broods were sometimes pitched into by gaunt marauders of the night, and his exchequer receipts made uncomfortably deficient. These outrages Pete charged chiefly upon the raLex talionis was his war-cry, and forthwith he became the uncompunctious destroyer! not assuaged by their capture and death, he feasted on their carcasses and sold their skins. His exhibitions of trophies won, and the recountals of his many hunts, inflamed our desires for participations in future. He, good fellow, could not resist us, and we often ransacked together the branches of the tangled ravines, returning home in time to catch a few hours' sleep. In past times there were many prophets, but the present teems with precocities-arithmetical wonders, dramatic geniuses, and, in another line,

Harry and I were youthful prodigies. No one discovered our genius save Pete, or blazoned our prowess-but that was their misfortune, or their crime, for we cut out work and displayed conduct fit to antecede the exploits of a Cumming. Hitherto we had been able to conceal our deeds from the governor by the good management of Peter, such as cleaning our clothes and shoes very early; but one night, just at the close of winter, we did so smashing a business as to put a stopper on our hunts about those capes.

And now, most patient reader, who hast endured us thus far, place thy feet upon the mantelpiece, or indulge in some other variety of position, for the gas has escaped and we are approaching the earth.

After rendezvousing and circling the dwellings and school-houses, a half-mile's trot brought us quickly to a great coon county. Swinging over the mill-race with leap-poles, we entered at first a sloping old field covered with broom sedge and prairie grass, and terminating in briars and bushes that in their turn fringe the lower and damper grounds embraced in the ravine; the opposite side of the branch was a steep hill, gapped, as we proceeded up the stream, with several smaller