" Hallo ! Mr. Jonathan, good morning. How are you?" exclaimed the
stranger, picking up the partridge as he advanced towards me. " That 's
a capital shot of yours — a first-rate shot ; ten rods at least, and head taken
off as clean as a whistle."

The speaker was old Joe Downs, well known as an expert trapper and
hunter ; and as generally liked as he was known. There was nothing
rough or outr6 in his appearance or style of conversation ; none of the
half-horse and half-alligator characteristics generally attributed to the
woodsman of the south and west. Nothing could be more simple or
respectable than his air and looks ; so much so that more than once Joe
had been taken for a country parson. His ostensible home was in the
village, but his real home was in the woods, the greater part of his time
being spent in expeditions up to the sources of the Rackett and Grass
Rivers, in the dense and perfectly uninhabited wilderness in the northern
part of the State of New York, known as John Brown's tract. A few
beaver yet lingered round their old favorite haunts on the numerous
beautiful little lakes, which, like dimples here and there, lighted up the face
of nature with smiles, and relieved the stern solitude of the woods. They
were, however, nof in sufficient numbers to attract the hunter, who found
more profitable enjoyment in trapping the muskrat, or in killing deer for
their skins. Even in these pursuits but very few whites were engaged,
the most of the hunters being Indians, of the St. Regis nation, or from
some Canadian tribes, who, once a year, made an excursion up the Rac-
kett for two or three months, and then returned with their spoils to their
home on the St. Lawrence.
