74 jock's i-ake. 



allies of the rabbits, and sprung the traps. But at last a 

 little chap ran into our hut, and him we caught and con- 

 fined in a ])ark-cage then and there made. 



So did we beguile the ho\u"s of the afternoon and 

 evening. 



So did not, however, Horace; for he hovered around the 

 rack wheie the sliced deer-meat was slowly drj'ing and 

 smoking over the tire he had built luider it, and, after cur- 

 ing it to a turn, stored it away to be carried out of the 

 woods as a wonderful product of woodsman's skill, to be 

 shown and nibbled and pronounced delicious — after it was 

 explained that it was "jerked" venison. 



The days went on, and we found renewed pleasures in 

 the old employments and sports. There were the rowing, 

 the fishing, the bathing, the rifle-shooting, always, and we 

 invented new diversions and enjoyments almost daily, — 

 small and unimportant to speak of, but wonderfully 

 important to be done and enjoyed. We had our terrific 

 thunderstorms, depositing floods of water, rather too fre- 

 quently, but they w^ere always so grand, that if we got a 

 wetting there was no grumbling, — it spoiled no clothing 

 and broke no business engagement. The fishing was all 

 that our more ardent fishermen desired; and there was 

 something for every taste and fancy and desire. Even the 

 screams of the owls by night— and those other sounds, as 

 of human agony that once we heard,— brought something 

 to us. 



At last, there came an evening — our last in our woodland 

 home— when we rowed out on the beautiful lake to say our 



