Once fairly in view, any doubt or apprehension, that the stranger might at
first have entertained, disappeared. He rode boldly and steadily forward,
until he drew a rein that his impoverished and weary beast gladly obeyed,
within a few feet of the proprietor of the valley, whose gaze had never
ceased to watch his movements, from the instant when the other first came
within view. Before speaking, the stranger, a man whose head was getting
gray, apparently as much with hardship as with time, and one whose great
weight would have proved a grievous burthen, in a long ride, to even a
better-conditioned beast than the ill-favored provincial hack he had
ridden, dismounted, and threw the bridle loose upon the drooping neck of
the animal. The latter, without a moment's delay, and with a greediness
that denoted long abstinence, profited by its liberty, to crop the herbage
where it stood.
"I cannot be mistaken, when I suppose that I have at length reached the
valley of the Wish-Ton Wish," the visiter said, touching a soiled and
slouched beaver that more than half concealed his features.
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