A NEW SOUND IN THE FOREST. 97 



sounds were repeated, and the hills seemed to groan with 

 affright as they sent them back in wavy and quavering 

 echoes from their rugged sides. 



" ' We must understand this,' said my friend, as he led 

 the way with a cautious and stealthy movement towards the 

 depths of the hollow, whence the sounds came, and there, 

 by the stream, on a little sand-bar, stood old Sangamo's 

 donkey, by the side of a deer. Old Sangamo himself was 

 stretched at full length on the bank, fast asleep. How he 

 could have slept on, with such an infernal roaring as that 

 donkey made in those old woods, six or eight miles outside 

 of a fence, is more than I can comprehend. But he did 

 sleep through it all, and was wakened only by a punch in 

 the ribs with the butt of my rifle, instigated by pity for the 

 poor donkey that was being eaten up by the flies. We 

 helped him to load the carcass of the deer on the back of 







his donkey, and saw him move off lazily towards home. I 

 have heard a good many strange noises ifi my day, but 

 never, on any other occasion, have I listened to anything to 

 be at all compared with the noise made by the braying of 

 old Sangamo's donkey in the Chataugay woods." 



As the Doctor concluded his story, the sharp crack of 

 Spalding's rule broke the stillness of the night, and went 

 reverberating among the hills, and dying away over the 

 lake. It was but a short distance from our camp, in a 

 little bay hidden away around a wooded promontory below 

 us. In a few minutes, the light was seen, rounding the 

 point that hid the bay from our view, and, as the boat 



5 



