Hunter

“ The lords of our land to this hunting have gone, As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the horn; Hark! the cheer and the hallo! the crack of the whip, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip! All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match, Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch. So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest,—the hunting of men! Gay luck to our hunters! how nobly they ride In the glow of their zeal, and the strength of their pride! ”

“ What hunter will bring me the deer, or the flesh of the bear or the bison? For my kinsmen before me have gone; they hunt in the land of the shadows. In my old age forsaken, alone, must I die in my teepee of hunger? Winona, Tamdóka can make my empty lodge laugh with abundance; For thine aged and blind father's sake, to the son of the Chief speak the promise. For gladly again to my tee will the bridal gifts come for my daughter. A fleet-footed hunter is he, and the good spirits feather his arrows; And the cold, cruel winter will be a feast-time instead of a famine. ”

“ Over the platform bears and men went rolling and struggling, in the wild battle of life and death. Through the trees, and into the deep drift, staining the snow with their mingled blood! Here, two or three men were engaged with a single foe—there, some brave hunter stood battling alone. ”

“ The little hunter spirit has frightened them.
"When the tired hunter stops, far from his lodge, to roast his meat, the little mischief-maker blows out his fire and fans the smoke into his eyes.
"He catches the arrows which are aimed at the birds and hides them. He puts slippery clay in the path and laughs when the children fall. No one can tell all his tricks of mischief." ”

“ Bow and arrow bearing, Over hills and streams Moves the hunter daring, Soon as daylight gleams. As all flying creatures Own the eagle's sway, So the hunter, Nature's Mounts and crags obey. Over space he reigneth, And he makes his prize All his bolt attaineth, All that creeps or flies. ”

“ I have seen the hunter in them and the shepherd too, coarse men in life and occupation, come sudden among the blowing rush and whispering reed, among the bog-flower and the cannoch, unheeding the moor-hen and the cailzie-cock rising, or the stag of ten at pause, while they stood, passionate adventurers in a rapture of the mind, held as it were by the spirit of such places as they lay in a sloeberry bloom of haze, the spirit of old good songs, the baffling surmise of the piper and the bard. ”

“ Such sagas would naturally have their origin in an age when the ideas of shepherd and hunter occupied a great portion of the intellectual horizon of the people; when the herdman saw in the ravenous bear one who was his equal, and more than his equal, in force and adroitness, the champion of the woods and wilds; when the hunter, in his lonely ramble through the depths of the forest, beheld in the hoary wolf and red fox, as they stole along,—hunters like himself,—mates, so to say, and companions, and whom he therefore addressed as such.... ”

“ Landmarks upward to the mountains,
That this hunter may not wander,
May not fall, and falling perish
In the snow-fields of thy kingdom,
Hunting for the moose of Hisi,
Dowry for the pride of Northland. ”

“ For the first time he sensed the vast difference between the hunter and the hunted, between the man who played the game of life and death alone and the one who played it with the Law and all its might behind him. ”

“ The hunter understood, for in those days men and birds could talk together.
The bird asked the man what he could do for him, and the hunter whispered, "You are strong. You can fly a long trail. Go and tell the chief of my people." ”

“ It so happened that a hunter, whose great delight was to kill wild creatures, and who was very clever in finding them, noticing every little thing which could shew him where they had passed by, came one day into the barley-field. ”

“ Once more the farmers hustled about and craned over each other’s shoulders to look at a wonderful specimen of a hunter which was put up to sale last. Without warranty, of no definite age, with a suspicious lameness, and timid, lack-lustre eye, the brute, which had evidently mistaken its vocation as a hunter, was led up and down amidst the jeers of the knowing ones,—and who is not knowing when a horse is in question? ”

“ A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their meat or horns, or for some lust for blood—that was Helen's definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held by the majority of people living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. ”

“ While I was trying to drag it toward the herd, the hunter bound all my limbs and I fell to the ground, head foremost. And the herd of deer vanished, seeing no hope of saving me.
When the hunter came up, he did not put me to death, for pity softened his heart at the thought: "He is a fawn, fit only for a pet." Instead, he carefully took me home and gave me as a plaything to a prince, who showed his delight at seeing me by giving the hunter a generous reward. ”

“ A hunter fixes a blazing torch in his hat, or has another person to carry one just before him; the deer will stand gazing at the light while he approaches, and by the brilliancy of their eyes and space between them, calculates his distance and takes his deadly aim. ”

“ Oh! indeed, no hunter is like him, when he comes down from the north, bringing frost, his bride, along with him; he hunts the leaves from the trees, and destroys the animals which inhabit the earth, even in their holds and fastnesses. ”

“ We shall therefore suppose that we are now about to follow the true hunter, as the Still Hunter is also called, through the interior of the tangled woods, across morasses, ravines, and such places, where the game may prove more or less plentiful, even should none be found there in the first instance. We shall allow our hunter all the agility, patience, and care, which his occupation requires, and will march in his rear, as if we were spies, watching all his motions. ”

“ The hunter—if a stranger to the feat—would expect to see the creature crushed or crippled by the fall. No danger of that. Even the watchful dog that is waiting for such an event, and standing close to the spot, has not time to spring upon it, until it is off again like a flying bird, and, almost as quick as sight can follow, is seen ascending some other tree. ”

“ The hunter thinks that day approaches, and calls his bounding dogs. He ascends the hill, and whistles on his way. A blast removes the cloud. He sees the starry plough of the north. Much of the night is to pass. ”

“ Besides giving me good help in my often laborious work, you may for once in a while see how you like the rollicking life of a hunter, and how, after drawing up a neatly-written protocol one morning, you will frame the next when you come to look in the glaring eyes of such a sturdy brute as a grim shaggy wolf or a wild boar gnashing his teeth, and whether you know how to bring him down with a well-aimed shot. ”

“ We may imagine the hunter striving by sign, or gesture, or rudimentary language, to express his delight when he has succeeded in the chase, his despair when ill success leaves him and his to pine with hunger, his terror when the eclipsed moon turning to red, when flood, or lightning, or pestilence warns him that the spirits of nature are wroth, his grief when bear, or bison, 49 or famished wolf has slain his wife or child. ”

“ The successful hunter lifts up his voice in a sound of triumph, repairs to the nearest tree to regale himself on his prize, and, for a few minutes—that is, until the chase is resumed—utters his loud weird shriek again and again. ”

“ It is necessary to have been present at such a chase, to have seen this hunt on the prairies, to form an idea of the magnificent sight offered by all these noble brutes, their eyes afire, their mouths foaming, their heads haughtily thrown up, and their manes fluttering in the wind, as they bounded and galloped in the fatal circle the hunters had formed round them. ”

“ Aqueducts and tailor work may be alike out of my individual and personal knowledge, yet I may not necessarily be an ignorant man. The primitive hunter stood in the forest. For him to be a hunting-sage, was to know the weather, traps, weapons, the times, and the lairs and ways of beasts. ”

“ Then again, my son, if a wounded or cornered bear comes suddenly upon a hunter, the beast will not at once rush at him, grab him or bite him, but will instantly draw back, just as the hunter will do; then it will sit up upon its haunches for a moment, as though to think over the situation; that pause, slight as it is, gives the hunter a moment to uncover his gun, cock it, and aim, and fire it at the beast's mouth. ”

“ Mighty Tapio, be gracious,
Let me wander through thy forests,
Let me glide along thy rivers,
Let this hunter search thy snow-fields,
Where the wild-moose herds in numbers
Where the bounding reindeer lingers. ”

“ He considered her and then the rock, not with suspicion, but as if he held the matter in abeyance for further consideration; a hunted man and a hunter must keep an eye for little things, must carry an armed hand and an armed heart even among friends. ”

“ Then again the elk and bison on thy grassy banks shall feed, And along the low horizon shall the pluméd hunter speed; Then again on lake and river shall the silent birch canoe Bear the brave with bow and quiver on his way to war or woo: Then the beaver on the meadow shall rebuild his broken wall, And the wolf shall chase his shadow and his mate the panther call. From the prairies and the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows ”

“ So far from clustering in attack around their boats, it is the very reverse, and a hunter’s only solicitude is which way to travel in order that he may come up with the fleeing animals as they rise to breathe. ”

“ The huntsman gains more and more on the pursued. The little deer is tired, and presses against its mother. The doe stops to draw breath. The hunter comes up with them and draws his bow. But just then the bird sounds its note, warning the deer of their danger. They escape. ”

“ The senses of hearing, smell, and sight are exceedingly acute; so that the hunter must exercise all his craft to approach the animals. Pages might be filled with the hair-breadth escapes and fearful accidents which have befallen hunters; and yet they find the pursuit so fascinating that nothing will induce them to abandon it. ”

“ But so deep an impression have the thousands of years of hunting made upon the race, that even among the most highly civilised people hunting is the most popular of all enjoyments, and the hunter is a hero while the shepherd is looked on as a poor sort. ”

“ The hunter celebrates his return from a successful chase, his experience in the attempt to propitiate the supernatural powers on his behalf, or any other notable event, by recording the impressive incidents on the handle of his hunting knife or his ivory bow, or even in some cases on a tablet of walrus ivory; just as the enthusiastic sportsman will at times enter in his journal the special occurrences of the fox-hunt, or the more adventurous feats of deer-stalking, or commission an artist to perpetuate them on canvas. ”

“ The hunter then tramped all over the wood, tapping the trees, evidently in search of more sport, and in so doing he passed within ten yards of us. All this time we lay with our bodies pressed to earth in a perfect agony of doubt. ”

“ It was the face of a man; and that in the most emphatic sense of the word. He was a young man—apparently about four or five and twenty—and costumed as a backwoods hunter; that is, he wore a buckskin hunting-shirt, leggings, and mocassins—with bullet-pouch and powder-horn suspended over his shoulder, and hunting-knife sheathed in his belt. ”

“ Cut a birch-rod from the thicket,
Whip them hither in their beauty,
Drive the wild-moose to my hurdle,
Hither drive the long-sought booty
To the hunter who is watching,
Waiting in the Hisi-forests. ”

“ The hunter and the deer, a shade! ”

“ Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go
Over those hoary crests, divinely led!—
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow,
Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below,
Like the wild Chamois from her Alpine snow,
Where hunter never climb'd,—secure from dread? ”

“ Our hunters had been as successful as could be wished, and at evening we assembled around a full feast of "marrow-bones;" a treat whose value must for ever remain unknown to those who have not tried the adventurous life of the hunter. We were often surprised to witness in ourselves a proof of the facility with which a part at least of the habits of the savage could be adopted. ”

“ The hunter goes; a swineherd, seeking lost droves of pigs turned loose to fatten on the acorns, comes across the place. The news filters through the country, reaches the huddled villages by the river, reaches the dwellers in the hills, the people of the forest. ”

“ His skill and success as a hunter daily increased, and he killed the deer, bear, moose, and other large animals inhabiting the forest.
At last, although so very small of stature, he became a great hunter, and all that he shot he brought home and shared with his sister; and whenever he entered the lodge, a light beamed about his head and filled the place with a strange splendor. ”

“ An experienced hunter steadies his arm, not allowing it to take part in the motion of his body, no matter how rough the latter may be. But we were not experienced hunters, and so, although such exclamations as, "That told!" ”