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Show 366 Early Western Travels [ Vol 26 and, verily, here was a host ample to atone for all former deficiency, parading in ungainly magnificence through the forest upon every side, or peeping curiously down, with outstretched necks and querulous piping, from their lofty perches on the traveller below. It is by a skilful imitation of this same piping, to say nothing of the melodious gobble that always succeeds it, that the sportsman decoys these sentimental bipeds within his reach. The same method is sometimes employed in hunting the deer - an imitated bleating of the fawn when in distress - thus taking away the gentle mother's life through the medium of her most generous impulses; a most diabolical modus operandij reader, permit me to say. Emerging at length, by a circuitous path, once more upon the prairie, instructions were again sought for the direct route to Pinkneyville, and a course nearly north was now pointed out. Think of that; cast, south, north, in regular succession too, over a tract of country perfectly uniform, in order to run a right line between two given points! This was past all endurance. To a moral certainty with me, the place of my destination lay away just southwest from the spot on which I was then standing. Producing, therefore, my pocket- map and pocket- compass, by means of a little calculation I had soon laid down the prescribed course, determined to pursue none other, the remonstrances, and protestations, and objurgations of men, women, and children to the contrary notwithstanding. Pushing [ 122] boldly forth into the prairie, I had not travelled many miles when I struck a path leading off in the direction I had chosen, and which proved the direct route to Pinkneyville] Thus had I been forced to cross, recross, and cross again, a prairie miles in breadth, and to flounder through a swamp other miles in extent, to say nothing of the depth, and all because of the utter igno- |