A Day in the Big Woods 



It was my deer. 



— Julius CiSSAB. 



On one of our hunting trips through the wilds of 

 Maine we had a series of three camps, and I think it 

 will add interest to my tale to describe these minutely 

 before beginning it. 



The lower camp is pitched upon a ledge of rock 

 commanding a delightful prospect, embracing a small, 

 circular lake in front, with an open, grassy bog on its 

 sides and back of it, and a thoroughfare leading out 

 of the little lake to a large one, eighteen miles long, 

 some two miles below. We named this camp " Look- 

 out Point." Back of the camp, and three-quarters of 

 a mile away, there is another small lake, long and 

 irregular in shape, with a muddy bog at the mouth 

 of it, where the busy beavers have built one of their 

 characteristic dams, which, my guide tells me, con- 

 tains two adult beavers and three young ones. How 

 he became so well posted in the number of sprouts on 

 their family tree, I can't say ; but surely there were 

 beavers there, for we saw evidence of their fresh 

 work each morning that we inspected their dam. 



Their house was some two hundred yards away from 



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