But we should be doing injustice to le Bourdon, were we in any
manner to confound him with the "dickering" race. He was a bee-
hunter quite as much through love of the wilderness and love of
adventure, as through love of gain. Profitable he had certainly
found the employment, or he probably would not have pursued it; but
there was many a man who--nay, most men, even in his own humble
class in life-would have deemed his liberal earnings too hardly
obtained, when gained at the expense of all intercourse with their
own kind. But Buzzing Ben loved the solitude of his situation, its
hazards, its quietude, relieved by passing moments of high
excitement; and, most of all, the self-reliance that was
indispensable equally to his success and his happiness. Woman, as
yet, had never exercised her witchery over him, and every day was
his passion for dwelling alone, and for enjoying the strange, but
certainly most alluring, pleasures of the woods, increasing and
gaining strength in his bosom. It was seldom, now, that he held
intercourse even with the Indian tribes that dwelt near his
occasional places of hunting; and frequently had he shifted his
ground in order to avoid collision, however friendly, with whites
who, like himself, were pushing their humble fortunes along the
shores of those inland seas, which, as yet, were rarely indeed
whitened by a sail.
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