Along
in the afternoon we were visited by a trapper, who had, in his
wanderings, discovered the smoke of our camp fires. He was a
weather-beaten, iron man, of the solitudes of nature, who had wandered
away from his home in New England, and from civilization, into that
limitless wilderness. He was glad to see us, inquired the news from
the outer world, talked about York State, Vermont, the Bay State, and
then, after an hour's converse, as if his social instincts and
sympathies had been satisfied, he shouldered his rifle and started off
across the plain, towards a belt of timber lying dim and shadowy, like
a low cloud, upon the distant horizon. I watched him for an hour or
more, as he trudged away over the rolling prairie, growing less and
less to the view, until he became like a speck in the distance, and
then vanished from my sight. There was a solemn sort of feeling stole
over me, as this lonely hunter wended his way into the deep solitudes
of the prairies, to be alone with nature, communing only with himself
and the things scattered around him by the great Creator. He seemed to
be contented and happy. How different were his tastes from yours or
mine, my friends; and yet I felt as though it would have been easy for
me to have been like him, an isolated and solitary man, had
circumstances in early life thrown me into a position to have followed
the original bent of my nature.
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