266 FACT AGAINST FICTION, 



tlio spot where the doer had boon loft, and^ 

 finding no signs of the venison, I ordered the two 

 men to run right and left to the summit of two 

 hills, to scan all the open ground which they 

 commanded, as it seemed impossible for any man 

 or men, in the time that had expired, to get 

 completely out of sight in one way or the other. 

 I had then all my dogs with me, the deer dog, 

 used to killing deer and to track a wounded deer, 

 my old retriever, and my terriers. When the two 

 men had started from the spot where the fresh 

 blood was, I appealed to the deer dog to trace the 

 dead deer ; he understood me, put his nose down 

 a little, but almost immediately returned to the 

 fresh blood, and, licking it, looked up in my face, 

 as much as to say, ^^Here the doe loas, what have 

 you done ivith her ? " All this time my old 

 retriever had been at my heels a passive spectator. 

 He had never in all his life seen a deer killed, 

 nor had he ever been called on to liunt one, nor 

 to trace the footsteps of a man. 



Vexed immensely at losing the doe, and that 

 any thief should have ventured to touch one that 

 had fallen to my rifle, as from having been so 

 long in the forest they well knew I was not likely 



