CHAPTER IX. 



HUNTING BY TORCH LIGHT AN INCOMPETENT JUDGE A NEW 

 SOUND IN THE FOREST OLD SANGAMO'S DONKEY. 



SPALDING and Martin went out upon the lake after dark, 

 with one of the boats, to hunt by torch light. This is done 

 by placing a lighted torch, or a lamp upon a standard, placed 

 upright in the bow of the boat, and so high that a man 

 seated or lying upon the bottom of the craft, will have his 

 head below it. He must himself be in someway shaded from 

 the light, which must be cast forward so that both the hun- 

 ter and the boatman will be in the shadow. A very com- 

 mon method is to make a box, a foot or less square, open, 

 or with a pane of glass on one side ; a stick three or four 

 feet long is run through an auger hole in the top and bot- 

 tom, and wedged fast, which forms a standard ; the other 

 end of the stick is runHhrough a hole on the little deck 

 on the forward part of the boat, and placed in a socket 

 formed for the purpose in the bottom, and is wedged at the 

 deck, so as to make it steady. The open or glass front of 



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