THE CHASE. 881 



cattle for the want of hay, it was not an uncommon thing in the 

 earl}^ morning, to see several deer among their stock nipping off 

 the buds from the lately fallen trees, and they rarely failed to 

 stalk them successfully. The use of oxen was often resorted to 

 for the accomplishment of this purpose. The oxen were yoked 

 and hitched to a sled, with hay or straw, or other cover placed 

 upon it, beneath which the farmers would be concealed, when, if 

 the wind should favor they would make their way into the midst 

 of the herd of browsing cattle, without alarming the deer ; and 

 then if the farmer made a close shot the venison would soon 

 hang in his larder. 



In those districts, where the first settlers had to clear off the 

 heavy forest to make room for crops, they cut down an abun- 

 dance of trees in order to feed their stock, during winter, which 

 they cleared away in summer, and for the first few years these 

 clearings would be close by the log cabin; and when I was a boy 

 those who did this laborious work in the eastern States, were still 

 in active and vigorous life. If they seemed to me then to be old 

 men, as I estimate age now, they were scarcely past the jjrime of 

 life. They never wearied of relating their early experiences of 

 perhaps thirty years before, and surely I never wearied of listen- 

 ing to them. Their hunting experiences, when deer, bear, and 

 wild turkeys were so abundant as to be almost nuisances, fairly 

 transported me to the wild woods and wild scenes, and the ex- 

 citing chase which they so graphically described ; and I longed 

 for the time to come, when I should be old enough to carry a 

 rifle, and when I might wend my way to a new country such as 

 they described, where I too might revel among game which had 

 scarcely ever been alarmed by civilized man. 



It might not be difficult to remember enough of these narra- 

 tives to fill a book. One shall suffice, as it illustrates a fact not 

 generally recognized. A settler had made a deep excavation for 

 a cellar, with a narrow sloping way leading to it. A deep, light 

 snow had fallen, which the wind had blown into the excavation 

 until it was even with the surrounding surface. The settler's 

 cattle were browsing in sight of his door, when he saw among 

 them a deer. He seized his rifle and made a circuit so as to 

 approach the game behind a convenient shelter, which was just 

 on the opposite side. By the time he reached the covert a shght 

 breeze had sprung up and admonished the deer of his approach, 

 when it started directly away from the danger which it snuffed, 

 and made almost directly for the cabin, in the door of which the 



