I tried to walk alongside him the better to hear his narrative but the way through the tangled thicket was so narrow that I was forced to follow. Now and again he would hold the brush apart so that I might pass through. Occasionally we were able to proceed side by side. He told me that in the fall an old trail was visible here. In the spring and summer when the foliage was thick, he followed it by instinct. He did not go back and forth often enough to make a permanent opening through the brush. “Yes,” I encouraged, “and he got possessed?” “Crazy like,” he said. “Oh, yes.” I caught his meaning then. “We was trappers and hunters ’round here, me’n Mink was. We got bear and deer aplenty in them days. Me’n him, we didn’t think nothin’ o’ hoofin’ it ter Newburgh in them days. More often I’d hoof it ter Suffern ’n’ go daown ter Noo York on the cars. I ain’t seed a train close by fer twenty year. Ole Haley Corbett, he was engineer them days. Reckon you didn’t guess when yer looked me over I’d ben in Noo York, now, did yer? I seed ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in Fourteenth Street. Them wasn’ real bloodhounds; reckon I know a bloodhound when I see one. Hed two on ’em here jes’ after the war.” “The Civil War, you mean?” “Me, I wuz usual the one ter go ter Noo York with furs.” “And I dare say you had a pretty good time when you went there, eh?” “Ever ter Barnum’s Museum?” he asked. “That was before my time,” I said. “Me’n old Haley we was there nigh on every time I went daown with furs. Ever hear o’ Union Square?” “Oh, yes.” “Ever hear o’ Joe Pollock?” “No, I never did. I suppose probably he’s dead.” “Him it was I’d fetch furs to. He wouldn’ say nuthin’, I wouldn’ say nuthin’.” “Why, was there anything wrong in it?” I asked. “Ony huntin’ outer season, mebbe a few days or so.” “Oh, I see.” “Ain’t nuthin’ so wrong in that, I reckon?” “Well, I don’t know about that,” I laughed. “Watch out fer that poison ivy,” he said, as he pulled a bush aside for me to pass through. Here, I thought, was a rather attractive picture of old times, refreshing to think of in these days of speeding autos and rushing trains. I pictured this hunter emerging from his wild haunts with his stock of furs and walking to Suffern to get on a train for New York. “Good old Erie Railroad,” I said to myself, “and you have romance and tradition too.” It must have been fine to travel on one of those old-time trains (probably the only train to go in the day) and to hobnob with the engineer and go to Barnum’s Museum with him. I fancied Long Buck Sanderson as rather a gay visitor to the metropolis in those days. The business men of that time were not all too scrupulous either. For how about Joe Pollock, who received furs not always legally procured. Well, well.