140 THE DEER FAMILY 



distance, " the half-crazy negro deer-hunter galloping 

 ahead," they came to an opening — "and out from a 

 clump of bushes," the writer says, " not sixty yards 

 from me, cantered the prettiest little prong-buck 

 imaginable, coming straight toward me with his head 

 turned back to listen to the dogs. I grabbed my 

 gun, dropped to one knee, and took careful aim at 

 the white spot on the front of his breast — Bang ! 

 Up into the air five feet high he bounced, and a 

 white streak through the bushes to my right told me 

 that I had missed a deer at thirty yards with eighteen 

 buckshot." 



For an hour Mr. Seaman waited, and then, he says: 

 "Away off in the distance I heard the horns and the 

 hounds again. Had the deer doubled? I didn't know 

 much about those little red swamp-deer, but this might 

 be the case. And if a deer had passed that way once, 

 might he not do so again ? I concluded to be pre- 

 pared, and took up a stand on the top of a six-foot 

 stump, where I could see for seventy-five or eighty 

 yards in any direction. The sounds grew nearer, 

 nearer, nearer — they were within a quarter of a mile, 

 the music of the hounds ringing clear and mellow 

 through the aisles of the forest. I clutched my gun 

 tighter, the safety-catch up ; they were heading 

 straight for me, and from the sound I knew they 

 were behind something. Then I asked myself if the 

 dogs had doubled on their own trail ? This idea 

 nearly made me climb off my stump, when, skipping 

 lightly through the bushes a hundred yards away, and 

 headed straight for me, came my identical buck with 

 a doe beside him. Oh, but it was a sight ! They were 



