90 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



unable to surround, the driver was to enter with the 

 hounds, and the deer would not be likely to make his 

 escape in that direction. 



The last I saw of Jackson he was winding around the 

 swamp with Mike, having left his daughter on a little 

 knoll that commanded a fair view of the hummock, and 

 where her bright bay horse and little figure stood out in 

 relief against the dark pines beyond. She caught sight 

 of me and waved her hand. I could see, from her atti- 

 tude, that she was intently watching the swamp, and her 

 short double-barrelled gun hung from her arm w^ith all 

 the ease that it would have been carried by a stronger 

 hunter. The doctor I could not see, but my negro, 

 Scipio, armed only with a knife, stood between us, and 

 only a short distance from me. I looked for the other 

 members of the hunt, but they had gone, and jDerfect 

 stillness reigned over the pine woods and hummock. 

 Moment after moment slipped away ; I listened for every 

 sound, but could hear nothing, save the impatient champ- 

 ing of my horse. Away down the woods a fox-squirrel 

 flirted his broad tail as he chased his comrade up a tree, 

 or a painted woodpecker passed by in undulating sweeps 

 as silently as a moth. At length I heard a distant call; 

 it was so faint it just reached me, but I recognized it as 

 the driver cheering the hounds as he cast them off. ISTow 

 for it. Another pause. The cry was repeated, and with 

 it the low yelp of a dog, then another, and then a ringing 

 shot away down the woods. My horse pricked his ears, 

 and Scipio mounted a fallen tree the better to survey 



