midnight
We should be just a healthy hunt apart ; and if the Lord ever intends any of His creaturs to be happy on ` arth , none could be happier than we four . '' `` You forget , my friend , '' answered Jasper , taking the guide 's hand and forcing a friendly smile , `` that I have no fourth person to love and cherish ; and I much doubt if I ever shall love any other as I love you and Mabel . '' `` Thank ` e , boy ; I thank you with all my heart ; but what you call love for Mabel is only friendship like , and a very different thing from what I feel . Now , instead of sleeping as sound as natur ' at midnight , as I used to could , I dream nightly of Mabel Dunham . The young does sport before me ; and when I raise Killdeer , in order to take a little venison , the animals look back , and it seems as if they all had Mabel 's sweet countenance , laughing in my face , and looking as if they said , ` Shoot me if you dare ! ' Then I hear her soft voice calling out among the birds as they sing ; and no later than the last nap I took , I bethought me , in fancy , of going over the Niagara , holding Mabel in my arms , rather than part from her . The bitterest moments I 've ever known were them in which the devil , or some Mingo conjuror , perhaps , has just put into my head to fancy in dreams that Mabel is lost to me by some unaccountable calamity -- either by changefulness or by violence . ''