Disembarrassing M. Reynal’s recital of its mask of improbabilities and impossibilities, remained obvious the naked fact that he had led the life of a confirmed _coureur des bois_. The French Canadian and Creole both, like the true Français de France, is loth to stir beyond the devil-dispelling sound of his chapel-bell; once torn from his _chez lui_, he apparently cares little to return, and, like the Englishman, to die at home in his own land. The adventurous Canadians--in whom extremes meet--have wandered through the length and breadth of the continent; they have left their mark even upon the rocks in Utah Territory. M. Reynal had quitted St. Louis at an early age as trader, trapper, every thing in short, provided with a little outfit of powder, ball, and whisky. At first he was unfortunate. In a war between the Sioux and the Pawnees, he was taken prisoner by the latter, and with much ado preserved, by the good aid of his squaw, that useful article his scalp. Then fickle fortune turned in his favor. He married several wives, identified himself with the braves, and became a little brother of the tribe, while his whisky brought him in an abundance of furs and peltries. After many years, waxing weary of a wandering life, he settled down into the somewhat prosaic position in which we had the pleasure of finding him. He was garrulous as a veteran soldier upon the subject of his old friends the trappers, that gallant advance guard who, sixty years ago, unconsciously fought the fight of civilization for the pure love of fighting; who battled with the Indian in his own way, surpassing him in tracking, surprising, ambuscading, and shooting, and never failing to raise the enemy’s hair. They are well-nigh extinct, those old pioneers, wild, reckless, and brave as the British tar of a century past; they live but in story; their place knows them no longer; it is now filled by the “prospector.” Civilization and the silk hat have exterminated them. How many deeds of stern fight and heroic endurance have been ignored by this world, which knows nothing of its greatest men, _carent quia vale sacro_! We talk of Thermopylæ and ignore Texas; we have all thrilled at the account of the Mameluke Bey’s leap; but how many of us have heard of Major Macculloch’s spring from the cliff?