A Vermonter. 803 



paid by the death of a deer. I have tried it once, 

 and though I endured it to the end, and secured my 

 game, yet that one trial satisfied me. I have never 

 " Avatched a deerHck" since, and am very sure I shall 

 never watch one hereafter. A man whose skin is 

 thinner than that of the rhinoceros, if he follows my 

 advice will not wait for a deer at a "lick" in the 

 Shatagee coimtry. 



" I mind," said my guide, as we paddled back to our 

 shantee, " a thing that happened down to the settle- 

 ments^ to a young feller that worked for a man there, 

 one summer four or five year ago, that made a deal of 

 fun among the neighbors for a long time. They 

 called him Gabe Calvin, and he was a long, slabsided, 

 strappin' youth, from Old Varmont. He was always 

 talkin' about the things he'd seen on the Green 

 Mountains, and from his tell he was the greatest 

 hunter this side of anywhere. The painters, and 

 catamounts, and bear, he'd seen, was amazin, and 

 you'd a believed that them varmints were thicker 

 where he came from, than gray rabbits in the Shatagee 

 Woods. He'd hearn tell of deerlicks, and how they 

 were sometimes made. So he started out one Sunday 

 into the woods, with a bag of salt and an auger. He 



