113 



forester's hand is as steady now, his #ye as keen to-day 

 as when in the last charge at Koniggratz a Prussian 

 sabre left that mark across his cheek. 



As we left the house and strolled down to the lake, 

 he told us we had come at the best of moments. Yes, 

 it was late in the season, but no one else had a permit, 

 and he knew where a fine Gamsbock, as he called it, 

 came down at dawn to feed below the larches. We 

 would start at once. The sun was hardly down. We 

 could reach the hut in the mountains before midnight, 

 and begin the chase at daybreak. 



A strange-looking craft awaited us by the shore, with 

 square ends and straight sides, and no vestige of a curve 

 anywhere in its blackened timbers. We felt as we put 

 off that our dress was not in keeping with the old canoe. 

 We should have been brave with wampum and with 

 warpaint, with feathers of the great war-eagle. The 

 picturesque equipment of the forester presented a better 

 harmony his braided jacket, his green hat with its silver 

 tassels and its blackcock's plume, and the carving on 

 the stock of the rifle resting near him as he rowed. 

 Swiftly we glided along the lake, over cloud and forest 

 and mountain copied in the tranquil depths. A strip of 

 vivid green ran all along above the rocky shore. Over 

 it rose dark ranks of pines, sombre and cold, in endless, 

 motionless array. By the farther shore two girls were 

 rowing homeward with grass from a clearing in the 

 forest. Keeping time with the swift strokes of their 

 paddles floated across the water the faint sounds of a 

 song. 



H 



