He slackened his pace then, and, thus running, we came in sight at
length of what appeared to be a vast wooden shed, or barn, with one
rude chimney, and surrounded by a thick fence, or stockade, many feet
high and apparently of immense strength and stability.
In the gateway of this fence stood the master of these solitudes, his
eyes fixed strangely on my coming with an intense, I had almost said
incredulous, interest. Nor did he cease so to regard me, while the
creature that had conducted me thither, told, I suppose, where he had
found me, and poured out with childish zeal his own amazement and
delight. By this time, too, his voice had begun to lose its first
strangeness, and to take a meaning for me. And I was presently fully
persuaded he spoke a kind of English, and that not unpleasingly, with
a liquid, shrill, voluminous ease. His master listened patiently
awhile, but at last bade his servant be silent, and himself addressed
me.
"I am informed, Yahoo," he said with peculiar deliberation, "that you
have been borne down into my meadows by the river, and fetched out
thence by my servant.
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