chair,--"gentlemen, I am not in the habit of spinning yarns of
marvellous or fictitious matters; and therefore it is scarcely necessary
to affirm upon the responsibility of my reputation, gentlemen, that what
I am about to tell you I most solemnly proclaim to be truth, and--"

"Oh, never mind that: go on, Mr. ----," chimed the party.

"Well gentlemen, in 18-- I came down the Ohio River, and settled at
Losanti, now called Cincinnati. It was at that time but a little
settlement of some twenty or thirty log and frame cabins, and where now
stand the Broadway Hotel and blocks of stores and dwelling-houses, was
the cottage and corn-patch of old Mr. ----, the tailor, who, by the bye,
bought that land for the making of a coat for one of the settlers. Well,
I put up my cabin, with the aid of my neighbors, and put in a patch of
corn and potatoes, about where the Fly Market now stands, and set about
improving my lot, house, etc.

"Occasionally I took up my rifle and started off with my dog down the
river, to look up a little deer or bar meat, then very plenty along the
river. The blasted red-skins were lurking about and hovering around the
settlement, and every once in a while picked off some of our neighbors
or stole our cattle or horses. I hated the red demons, and made no bones
of peppering the blasted sarpents whenever I got a sight of them. In
fact, the red rascals had a dread of me, and had laid a good many traps
to get my scalp, but I wasn't to be catched napping. No, no, gentlemen,
I was too well up to 'em for that.

"Well, I started off one morning, pretty early, to take a hunt, and
traveled a long way down the river, over the bottoms and hills, but
couldn't find no _bar_ nor deer. About four o'clock in the afternoon I