"Yes, a good idea," replied Gaut, his habitual cold reserve relaxing into something like cordiality; "I feel just in the humor to listen,--more so than to talk, on this hearty supper. Yes, by all means let us have the stories." "O, I should be exceedingly gratified," joined in Claud, in his usual frank and animated manner. "I like that, too; like to hear hunting story, always, much," added Tomah, with a glistening eye. "Well, no particular objection as far as I am concerned," responded the trapper, seriously; but adding, with his old waggish gleam of the eye: "that is, if you will take what I give, and swallow it as easily as you did Phillips' fish story. But let Carvil, who must be the youngest, go on with _his_ story first; I will follow; and Phillips shall bring up the rear." Carvil, after making a few excuses that were not suffered to avail him, commenced his narration, which we will head THE AMATEUR WOODSMAN'S STORY. "I call myself a woodsman, and a pretty good one, now; but, four years ago, I was almost any thing else but one of _any_ kind. I should have then thought it would have certainly been the death of me to have lain out one night in the woods. And I had no more idea of ever becoming a hunter or trapper, to remain out, as I have since done, for weeks and months in the depths of the wilderness, with no other protection than my rifle, and no other shelter than what I could fix up with my hatchet for the night, where I happened to be, on the approach of darkness, than I now have of undertaking to swim the Atlantic. And, as the circumstances which led to this revolution in my opinions and habits, when _out_ of the woods, may as much interest you, in the account, as any thing that happened to me after I got into them, I will first briefly tell you how I came to be a woodsman, and then answer your call by relating a hunting incident which occurred to me after I became one; which, if not very marvellous, shall, at least, have the merit of truth and reality.