The vessel was no sooner seen returning to St. Louis, than every heart beat high with joy, in the hope of recovering some property.  The men and officers of the Medusa jumped on board, and asked if any thing had been saved.  “Yes,” was the reply, “but it is all ours now;” and the naked Frenchmen, whose calamities had found pity from the Moors of the desert, were now deliberately plundered by their own countrymen.

A fair was held in the town, which lasted eight days.  The clothes, furniture, and necessary articles of life belonging to the men and officers of the Medusa, were publicly sold before their faces.  Such of the French as were able, proceeded to the camp at Daceard, and the sick remained at St. Louis.  The French governor had promised them clothes and provisions, but sent none; and during five months, they owed their existence to strangers—­to the British.

HUNTING THE MOOSE.

The habits of the moose, in his manner of defence and attack, are similar to those of the stag, and may be illustrated by the following anecdote from the “Random Sketches of a Kentuckian:” 

Who ever saw Bravo without loving him?  His sloe-black eyes, his glossy skin, flecked here and there with blue; his wide-spread thighs, clean shoulders, broad back, and low-drooping chest, bespoke him the true stag-hound; and none, who ever saw his bounding form, or heard his deep-toned bay, as the swift-footed stag flew before him, would dispute his title.  List, gentle reader, and I will tell you an adventure which will make you love him all the more.

A bright, frosty morning in November, 1838, tempted me to visit the forest hunting-grounds.  On this occasion, I was followed by a fine-looking hound, which had been presented to me a few days before by a fellow-sportsman.  I was anxious to test his qualities, and, knowing that a mean dog will not often hunt well with a good one, I had tied up the eager Bravo, and was attended by the strange dog alone.  A brisk canter of half an hour brought me to the wild forest hills.  Slackening the rein, I slowly wound my way up a brushy slope some three hundred yards in length.  I had ascended about half way, when the hound began to exhibit signs of uneasiness, and, at the same instant a stag sprang out from some underbrush near by, and rushed like a whirlwind up the slope.  A word, and the hound was crouching at my feet, and my trained Cherokee, with ear erect, and flashing eye, watched the course of the affrighted animal.

“On the very summit of the ridge, full one hundred and fifty yards, every limb standing out in bold relief against the clear, blue sky, the stag paused, and looked proudly down upon us.  After a moment of indecision, I raised my rifle, and sent the whizzing lead upon its errand.  A single bound, and the antlered monarch was hidden from my view.  Hastily running down a ball, I ascended the slope; my blood ran a little faster as I saw the gouts of blood’ which stained the withered leaves where he had stood.  One moment more, and the excited hound was leaping breast high on his trail, and the gallant Cherokee bore his rider like lightning after them.