"The Buffer" was rushing with all his might, Button being then situated upon his neck, in a position most convenient for being "skinned alive" by the trees, as he said, when a plunge made by the animal over a plashy pool transferred the rider to his tail, from which he "collapsed right down in a kind o' swoon, and when he come to, found himself settin' up to his elbows in muddy water, very solitary-like, and with a terrible stillness all around."--What became of "The Buffer" I forget, and also how Button got home; but he certainly did not ride. And he always wound up the narrative of his first and last fox-hunt by invoking terrible ends to himself, if ever he "threw leg over dog-hoss ag'in, to see a throw-off." Button left Lorette about two years after I first became acquainted with him, and I next heard of him down at the rock-walled Saguenay, where he had gone into a speculation for supplying the Boston market with salmon. But horse-flesh seemed to be more palatable to him than fish; for, later still, I met him at Toronto, in Upper Canada, mounted upon a powerful dark brown stallion, and leading another, its exact counterpart. "Hollo, Button!" said I, in response to his cheery, "How de dew?"--"On horseback again, I see; have you forgotten the Buffer-business, then?" "Forgot the yaller cuss!" replied he. "No, Sir-ree! He hangs round me yet, like fever 'n' agur upon a ma'sh. But the critter I'm onto a'n't no dog-hoss, you may believe; he don't 'throw off' nor nothin', _he_ don't. Him and his mate here a'n't easy matched. I fetched 'em up from below on spec, and you can hev the span for a cool thousand on ice." And this was the last I saw of Button, who was one of the strangest combinations of hotel-keeper, horse-jockey, Indian-trader, fish-monger, and alligator, I ever met.