6 MIDNIGHT DISTURBANCE. 



boundary-line. In this store our storeman slept 

 for some time, and, as bedsteads were superfluous 

 luxuries, he camped on the floor. By some evil 

 chance, a small colony of skunks obtained an 

 entrance into the dormitory, and deemed a consti- 

 tutional trot over the bed an enjoyable luxury. 

 The skunk, jealous of interruption, if the sleeper 

 (the victim of skunk incubus), hastily turned, 

 then, as from a powerful syringe (as I have seen 

 young ladies squirt scent from small metal bottles 

 purchased at the Crystal Palace), the offended 

 little night-walker fired its bottled nuisance over 

 both the man and his bed. ' Once bit, twice 

 shy,' says the adage. A light was carefully 

 concealed behind a package ; a double-barrelled 

 gun, loaded with No. 5, capped and cocked, was 

 placed within easy reach, and careful watch and 

 ward kept. In happy ignorance, in marched the 

 skunks for their nocturnal lounge, and, in the 

 dead silence of the night, bang, bang ! goes the 

 gun, awaking everyone in the camp adjoining. 

 I heard a Yankee packer, who slept near my tent, 

 rouse up and exclaim, in nasal anger, 'Waal, 

 thar's that varmint a fire-huntin' again. I'll be 

 dog gone if I wouldn't sooner roost in a tree 

 than camp down war them skunks is a makin' 

 tracks all the night ; I can smell em har ! ' 



