within ten feet of him, as he swam, escorted him towards the forest.  We treated him with great respect, offering him no indignity, interfering with him in nothing; and yet the old fellow seemed very far from appreciating our politeness, or relishing our company.  The truth is, he was horribly frightened, and he struggled desperately to rid himself of our association; but we stuck by him like his destiny, talking kindly to him, endeavoring to impress upon his mind that we meant him no harm—­indeed, that we were his friends.  But, I repeat, he did not appreciate our politeness.  By-and-by his feet touched the sand, and he bounded forward, as much as to say, “Good-bye, gentlemen,” when a simultaneous yell from all six of us, and the discharge of four rifles in quick succession over him, added wonderfully to the energy of his flight.  He will be likely to recognise us if he ever meets us again, and if the past furnishes any admonitions to his kind, he will give us a wide berth.

We rowed leisurely along the eastern shore, and in a deep bay found excellent fishing, at the mouth of a cold mountain brook.  On the banks of this bay we found the winter hut of a martin and sable trapper.  It had an outer and inner apartment, the latter almost subterranean.  The hut was composed of small logs, which a single man could lay up, the crevices between which were closely packed with moss, and the roof covered with two or three layers of bark.  The doorway was sawed through these logs, and a door, constructed of bark, was made to fit it; a rude hearth of sandstone was built in one corner, and a hole was open above it to let out the smoke.  Against the outside of this pen, only about ten feet square, logs were leaned up, the ends of which rested upon the ground, the interstices between them carefully stopped with moss, and the whole covered with bark; the ends consisted of stakes, driven into the ground and chinked with moss.  Into this sleeping apartment a door was cut from the parlor, large enough for a man to pass by getting down on all-fours; while within was a plentiful supply of boughs from the spruce and fir tree.  In this hut, now so dark, and in which the air was so dead and fetid, a solitary trapper had wintered, pursuing his occupation of martin and sable hunting—­the which, if tolerably successful, would yield him some two or three hundred dollars the season.  He carried into the woods a bag of flour or meal, a few pounds of pork, pepper, salt, and tea; and this, with the game he killed, made up his supply of food.  With no companion but his dog, he had probably spent two or three months, and very possibly more, in this lonely cabin.