THE VIRGINIA DEER 139 



to meet 'Old Red,' the tall, glimmering green pines 

 meeting the dusky gra}^ of the moss-cypress ; not a 

 clearing within five miles, and just at that hour when 

 the long golden scouts from the rising sun reach up to 

 push away the dark. The trail grew close, and was 

 ever winding about impenetrable thickets and black- 

 ened stumps of what had once been monarchs of the 

 forest. Suddenly we came into an open stretch where 

 the underbrush was much less dense, and, grouped 

 around a big cypress, with at least twenty dogs, and a 

 half dozen darkies on mules and other animals, was old 

 Sam Johnson, Bob Brosseur, and Hugh Bufkin, three 

 of the best-known deer-drivers in the parish. They 

 had been waiting for some time and were impatient, 

 so old Bob tolled off his boy to put me on a stand, 

 while the four white men went ahead to the right to 

 find their own particular place to stand." 



The darkies and hounds were now sent to " what is 

 known as the Berry Brake, a dense lagoon-like section 

 of ground filled in with blackberry-bushes and a wild 

 tangle of a million varieties of creepers, cypress, and 

 tamarack." 



The writer, Mr. Seaman, with his colored guide, 

 went toward the river, and after they had gone a mile 

 or so the latter instructed the former " to stop and get 

 off and wait there, as it was a ' stand.' " When they 

 heard the distant voices of the hounds the guide said : 

 "They got him," Shortly afterward the negro began 

 to get excited, and calling to Mr. Seaman to come on, 

 they started at a rapid gait through blackberry-bushes 

 and other briers, under low-hanging branches and 

 vines, over fallen logs, and when they had gone some 



