“Ha! that’s the sort o’ thing—that’s it!”—he exclaimed, nodding his head, as if the rich and picturesque arrangement of wood and water had been got up expressly for his benefit, and he were pleased to signify his entire approval of it.
“That’s just it,” he continued after a short contemplative pause, “just what I expected to find. Ain’t I glad? eh?”
March certainly looked as if he was; but, being at that moment alone, no one replied to his question or shared his enjoyment. After another pause he resumed his audible meditations.
“Now, did ever any one see sich a place as this in all the wide ’arth? That’s what I want to know. Never! Just look at it now. There’s miles an’ miles o’ woods an’ plains, an’ lakes, an’ rivers, wherever I choose to look—all round me. And there are deer, too, lots of ’em, lookin’ quite tame, and no wonder, for I suppose the fut of man never rested here before, except, maybe, the fut of a redskin now an’ again. And there’s poplars, an’ oaks, an’ willows, as thick as they can grow.”
March might have added that there were also elm, and sycamore, and ash, and hickory, and walnut, and cotton-wood trees in abundance, with numerous aspen groves, in the midst of which were lakelets margined with reeds and harebells, and red willows, and wild roses, and chokeberries, and prickly pears, and red and white currants. He might, we say, have added all this, and a great deal more, with perfect truth; but he didn’t, for his knowledge of the names of such things was limited, so he confined himself, like a wise youth, to the enumeration of those things that he happened to be acquainted with.
“And,” continued March, starting up and addressing his remark to a hollow in the ground a few yards off, “there’s grisly bars here, too, for there’s the futmark of one, as sure as I’m a white man!”
Most people would have been inclined to differ with March in regard to his being a white man, for he was as brown as constant exposure in hot weather could make him; but he referred to his blood rather than to his skin, which was that of white parents.
The footprint which he had discovered was, indeed, that of a grisly bear, and he examined it with more than usual interest, for, although many of those ferocious denizens of the western woods had been already seen, and a few shot by the trappers on their voyage to this point, none had been seen so large as the monster whose footprint now attracted Marston’s attention. The print was eleven inches long, exclusive of the claws, and seven inches broad.
While March was busily engaged in examining it, Black Gibault came panting up the hill with a huge pack on his back.
“Ho! March, me garçon, vat you be find là?” cried the Canadian, throwing down his pack and advancing. “A bar, Gibault; Caleb himself. A regular big un, too. Just look here.”