comfort, and to forget that he was one of the choristers of the wood. Woodpeckers were flitting hither and thither; troops of quails whistled in the distance; the oriole streamed out his bright light through the green branches; there was a winnowing of wings, a dashing of leaves, as birds came rushing in and out. It was their festival.

This scene was heightened by the appearance of a hunter. He was a noble specimen of the physical man. Tall, brawny—a giant in strength—his form loomed up in the distance. He was attired with a red flannel "wamus," a leathern belt girt around his waist, deer-skin leggins and moccasons, and a white felt hat that ran up to a peak. His rifle and shot-pouch were slung around him, and a few fox-squirrels hung dangling on his belt. His whole figure exhibited a harmony of proportion, a majesty of combination, sometimes seen in Roman statues. As I approached him, his face fairly beamed with rustic intelligence and good nature, and the old man grasped me by the hand, and shook it as heartily as if he had known me a thousand years.

"So you are the person," said Venison Styles,—for such I afterwards learned was the name he went by in the neighborhood,—"so you are the person that's come in here to settle, I s'pose—to cut down the trees and plough up this ere ground." I told him I was. "Well," said he, "so it goes; I have moved and moved, and I can't keep out of the way of these ploughs and axes. It was just as much as the deer, and beaver, and otter, could do, to stand them government surveyors that went tramping around among 'em, just as though they were going to be sold out wher-or-no. And then," continued Styles, growing warmer, "they tried to form a thing they called a school de-strict about my ears; and then came a church, and they put a little bell on it, and that scart out the game. Game can't stand church-bells, stranger, they can't; they clears right out."

I tried to soothe the old man's feelings, and among other things, advised him to give up his hunting and fishing, and settle down, and till the soil for a living.

"What on airth does anybody want to till the soil for?" replied Styles. "What does the soil want tilling for? Warn't the airth made right in the first place? The woods were filled with beast and bird, warn't they? and the whole face of natur covered with grass and wild fruits? and streams and lakes were scattered everywhere? Ain't there enough to eat, and drink, and wear, growing nat'ral in the woods? and what else does anybody want, stranger?"

"Yes, but you are growing old, and your sight is dim, my friend," said I.

"Old! dim! eyes bad! no! no! Venison Styles is good for twenty years yet. I don't take physic. There ain't no more use of taking such stuff, than there is of giving it to my dogs. 'Tain't nat'ral to take it, not no how. All a man wants in sickness is a little saxafax-tea, or something warmin' of that sort. Children are all spi'lt nowadays. Their heads and inards are crammed with physic and larning, and they ain't good for nothing. For my part, I hate physic, books, newspapers, and even the mail-carrier. None of my folks were troubled with larning; for, as near as I can tell, the old man (his father) died hunting game and furs down on the 'Hios, when it 'twas all woods there, and I never know'd of his writing or reading any."

"Well, Venison," said I, "how long have you been around in these parts?"

"Not mor-nor four or five years, or so about," answered Styles. "The game and I have kept running westard and westard, from civilization, as they call it, till I have travelled nigh on a thousand miles, or so. I used to hunt and trap way down on Erie, before them steamboats came a-snorting up, but when they came, they scart all the deer and everything out of the woods and streams; and then I left, too. This rifle," continued Styles, "this rifle has been along with me for forty years. I have eat and slept with it. I have worn out mor-nor twenty dogs—fairly worn 'em out, and buried every one with a tear; and byme-by old Venison himself will go, but he is good on the track yet."

I assented to much that was said by old Styles, and growing warmer the more interest I took in him, he rattled on about civilization—its effects, &c., &c.; and, finally, looking into a tree, where a cluster of spring birds were singing, he turned to me, and pointing upward—"Do you hear that?" he exclaimed; "that music was made when the world was—them throats warn't tuned by any singing-master; they always keep in order. If men would only jist let natur alone, we could get along well enough. 'Tain't right to make any additions to natur. 'Tain't right to invent music, nor to mock the birds, nor cut down the woods, nor dam up the streams. It's all agin natur, the whole on't. The birds can't be improved on, and the streams and woods belong to the fish and game. They are their houses as much as my house is my house. I always hated a saw-mill," continued Styles; "its very sound makes me mad. I never know'd a deer to stay within hearing of one. They roar away just as though they were going to tear down the whole forest, and pile it up into boards. I always try to keep out of their way." But I cannot give all the conversation of this eccentric genius of the forest, with me. He was one of a class of men who are hurried along by immigration, like clouds before the tempest. When the rays of improvement warmed Styles, he had pushed farther back into the shade. He was a connecting link between barbarism and civilization. One half of him was lit up with the light of the sturdy pioneers, who crowded in upon him from the east, and the other half stood dark and gloomy in savage solemnity. With all his antipathy to the society of the whites, he was their stanch friend, and in many ways was of great service. He became, as we shall see, one of my pleasantest companions, and I cannot help now declaring, that few men have taken such strong hold upon my affections as this same Venison Styles.

The old man shouldered his rifle, and inviting me to "drop into his cabin, up the creek," bid me "good morning, stranger."

Reader, such was the scene presented to my eye the day I first looked upon the piece of wild land upon which I finally settled and improved. I had just arrived from an eastern village, where I was born, and "brought up," as the phrase is. A somewhat broken fortune and breaking health had driven me from it, with a moderate family, to seek a spot elsewhere; and I resolved to try the Great West, that paradise (if the word of people who never saw it is to be taken) where the surplus population of a portion of the world have found a home.

The change was great. But great as it was, I resolved to endure it. So, at it I went. I procured "help," girdled the trees, put a breaking team of twelve yoke of cattle on the ground, tore it up, fenced the land, raised a log-house, and in the fall I had a crop of wheat growing, the withered oak trees standing guard over it. My family, consisting of a wife and three children, a boy of eight, and two girls of twelve and ten, were removed to their new quarters, and I had thus fairly begun the world again, and all things were as new about me as if I had just been born into it.

During the summer, I had an opportunity of studying the general character of the inhabitants of Puddleford, and its surrounding country population. Like most western settlements, it was made up of all kinds of materials, all sorts of folks, holding every opinion. More than a dozen states had contributed to make up its people. Society was exceedingly miscellaneous. The keen Yankee, the obstinate Pennsylvanian, and the reckless Southerner were there. Each one of these persons had brought