Who knows ?--perhaps he may yet need it to protect his life in circumstances which he cannot foresee.
But since his gun must remain suspended, inactive, to the walls of his cabin, it is time to think of supplying the place of the services it has rendered; it is time to realize his dream, and, according to the usual course of civilization, to substitute the life of a farmer and shepherd for that of a hunter.
Already is his colony augmented by six new guests, domesticated in his house; already, on every side, his seeds are peeping out of the ground under the most favorable auspices; his young trees, firmly rooted, are growing rapidly beneath the double influence of heat and moisture; at the axil of some of their leaves, he sees a bud, an earnest of the harvest.

He must now occupy himself with the means of surprising, seizing and retaining the ancestors of his future flock.
Here, patience, address or stratagem can alone avail.
Notwithstanding his natural agility, he does not dream of reaching them by pursuit.

Since his last hunts, goats and kids keep themselves usually in the steep and mountainous parts of the island.

To leap from rock to rock, to attempt to vie with them in celerity and lightness appears to him, with reason, a foolish and impracticable enterprise.
Later, perhaps,...

Who knows?
He manufactures snares, traps; but suspicion is now the order of the day around him; each holds himself on the _qui vive_.