"This brings me to the end of the unaccountable affair, and all I can say in explanation of it; for how these creatures, ingenious and knowing as they are, should have the intelligence to make laws,--as this case seems to pre-suppose,--get up a regular court, try, sentence, and execute offenders; what these offenders had done,--whether they were thievish interlopers from some other society, or whether they had committed some crime, such as burglary, bigamy, or adultery, or high treason, or whether they had been dishonest office-holders in the society and plundered the common treasury, is a mystery which you can solve as well as I. Certainly you cannot be more puzzled than I have always been, in giving the matter a satisfactory explanation. "And now, in conclusion, if you wish to know how I afterwards succeeded in taking more of this notable society of beavers, I have only to say, that, having soon commenced operations anew, I took, before I quit the ground that fall, by rifle, by traps, by digging or hooking them out of their hiding places in the banks, and, finally, by breaking up their dwelling-houses, twenty-one beavers in all; making the best lot which I ever had the pleasure of carrying out of the woods, and for which, a month or two after, I was paid, in market, one hundred and sixty-eight hard dollars." THE OLD HUNTER'S STORY. "I never but once," commenced the hunter, who had announced himself ready with the last story, when called on for that purpose by his comrades, after they had commented to their liking on the trapper's strange adventure,--"I never but once, in my whole life, became afraid of encountering a wild beast, or was too much unnerved in the presence of one to fire my rifle with certainty and effect. But that, in one event, I _was_ in such a sorry condition for a hunter, I freely confess. And, as you called for our most remarkable adventures, and as the occurrence I allude to was certainly the most remarkable one _I_ ever met with in _my_ hunting experience, I will relate it for the story you assign me.