CULMINATING DISASTER. 101 



had passed too far from my stand; secondly, changing 

 guns had lost me the deer ; and thirdly, the carelessness 

 of my friend in not sheltering his gun from the damp was 

 the reason of my not having turkey for a future day's 

 dinner. 



Tired, hungry, and bad tempered, I struck off direct 

 for my horse, expecting to have little more than a mile to 

 walk ; hut with surprise, after having travelled that dis- 

 tance, I found I was turned round and lost. Already it 

 was sunset, half an hour more would make it dark, and 

 the bottom land which I was now wandering through, was 

 as intricate, densely covered a swamp as ever was inhabited 

 by wild cat. The season of the year, moreover, was not 

 exactly the one to select for making your couch on the 

 surface of mother earth, and visions of a good dinner, 

 comfortable fire, and dry clothes floated before me. Hark! 

 what is that a dog barking? And so it was. Forward 

 I pushed to the sound, and in doing so came across a 

 road, which, on inspection, I recognised as one we had 

 traversed in the morning. The rest of the programme for 

 that day was plain sailing. I found my pony where he 

 was left, my friend's horse being gone ; so, concluding 

 Will had made tracks for home, I mounted my fiery little 

 nag, and with a sufficiently tight rein to guard against 

 accidents, rattled home, almost at a racing pace. It was 

 nearly two hours afterwards that Will turned up wet and 

 exhausted down upon his luck and deer in particular 

 yowing that he would be up with the sun in the morning, 

 and not return till he could boast of not having been 

 beaten by a broken-legged deer, when there was enough 



