Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/87

Rh 'twa'n't because there was more game in this country then than there is now, fur there wa'n't,—not half as much. There's more game in Virginny now than there's been any time this fifty years."

I expressed my surprise at this statement, and he continued:

"It all stands to reason, plain enough. Ef you don't kill them wild critters off, they'll jist breed and breed, till the whole country gits full uv 'em. An' nobody had no time to hunt 'em durin' the war,—we was busy huntin' different game then, and sometimes we was hunted ourselves; an' since then the most uv us has had to knuckle down to work,—no time for huntin' when you've got to do your own hoein' and ploughin',—or, at least, a big part uv it. An' I tell ye that back there in the mountains there's lots o' deer where nobody livin' about here ever saw 'em before, and as fur turkeys, and 'coons, and 'possums, there's more an' more uv' em ev'ry year, but as fur beavers, them confounded chills-and-fever rep-tyles,—there's jist millions uv 'em, more or less."

"Do beavers have chills and fever?" I asked wonderingly.

"No," said he, "I wish they did. But they give it to folks. There aint nothin' on earth that's raised the price o' quinine in this country like them beavers. Ye see, they've j'ist had the'r own way now, pretty much ever sence the war broke out, and they've gone to work and built dams across pretty nigh all the cricks we got, and that floods the bottom-lands, uv course, and makes ma'shes and swamps, where they used to