244 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



" Shut up, lhar, or I'll send a ball after y0u, and let 

 the bark all out the wrong way !" he said, and tossing 

 his rifle in the hollow of his arm, strode away down the 

 bay. The words that he had been pondering over, it 

 may be for months, had remained all unspoken ; the very 

 robe that he had taken, with leagues of walking and 

 weeks of waiting, that he had ornamented with all the 

 taste of the woods, had only procured him a moment's 

 gratitude, and the bold heart that for years had been 

 unmoved by a life of peril, by ceaseless nameless dangers, 

 by night and day, was frightened into hesitation and 

 silence by a young girl. 



The sun had gone down, the shadows lengthened on 

 the long sandy reaches ; it greAV dark almost in a moment. 

 Mike disappeared in the dusk, while from the knoll where 

 the fires were lighted Lou Jackson was watching the 

 way he went. 



