ANTLEBED TENANTS OF THE WOODS. 207 



down, parallel with the river. i Better luck next time,' I 

 said to myself, somewhat disconsolately ; but I was disap- 

 pointed. Presently the sharp, ringing crack of a rifle 

 rang out and reverberated across the forest ; another and 

 another followed, and, as I began to get cold again, I tried 

 to console myself by meditating on the luck of other 

 people. 



7. "At camp, the doctor was the center of an animated 

 circle. He was most unreasonably composed, as I thought, 

 and told us, with his German equanimity, how Jack and 

 Pedro had run in a large buck, which immediately swam 

 down the middle of the river. He fired from his place 

 on the side of a bluff, and missed. At the second shot he 

 succeeded in hitting the deer in the neck. As if this were 

 not sufficient, there presently appeared a very pretty fawn, 

 whose young hopes were promptly blighted. During 

 the afternoon, Curtis brought both deer up to camp and 

 dressed them. The buck was finely antlered, and was 

 estimated to weigh two hundred pounds. 



8. " Six days passed, and a dozen deer were hanging 

 in the barn, and I was quite guiltless of the death of any 

 of them. The next day, five deer were killed, without 

 any participation upon my part, and in the evening some 

 of us, with lanterns, went down to the river to secure one 

 that had lodged somewhere in the drift-wood. We found 

 it by the light of the birch-bark. As we made our way 

 along the bank, our backwoodsman would pick out here 

 and there a large white birch, and apply a match to the 

 curling ringlets of bark at the foot of the trunk. In a 

 moment the whole stem of the tree was in a roaring blaze 

 that lit up the river-bank all round about, and made the 

 great cedars look like gigantic skeletons. 



9. " Next morning I was at my place, subdued and 

 hopeful. I heard a shot fired on the river below me ; I 



