104 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



the thickness of the drift our charioteer lost his way, and 

 after getting mired times without number, and enduring 

 one of the most disagreeable nights out of doors it is 

 possible to imagine, we reached the village of Kent. 

 "Under ordinary circumstances it would have presented no 

 great inducements, but the large wood fire that blazed in 

 the bar-room of the diminutive tavern, after our protracted 

 night of hardship, possessed such attractions, that I 

 determined to lay over for a couple of days. The neigh- 

 bourhood was well stocked with game I learned the 

 following evening, when I presented myself among the 

 habiiues, who commonly made this public-house their 

 place of rendezvous after the toils of the day. No small 

 portion of the conversation was in reference to a buck, 

 who for years had constantly been seen, yet none of the 

 heretofore successful hunters had been able to circumvent 

 him. It was evident that this animal was of no ordinary 

 size, as he was dubbed by all with the sobriquet of the big 

 buck, and one regular old leather-stocking, whose opinion 

 was always listened to with the reverence due to an 

 authority, ventured to assert that he believed the bullet 

 would never be moulded that would tumble him (the buck) 

 in his tracks. This extraordinary deer had almost escaped 

 my memory, and I was resting over my next morning's 

 pipe, and beginning to fear that my visit was longer than 

 necessary, for there was absolutely nothing to do but to 

 eat and sleep, unless the prices of pork, corn, or wheat had 

 possessed interest, when a man from the timber-land 

 arrived with a load of wood, and held the following con- 

 versation with the mixer of mint juleps, cocktails, &o. 



