128 SHOOTING BY TUBNS. 



gravely enough, that he did not fire while the game was 

 standing broadside to him, on account of his desire to give 

 the animal' a chance for his life. The truth is, that Spalding 

 had a bad, a very bad attack of the aforesaid Buck fever. 



The Doctor, by rotation, now became the leading marks- 

 man. He was cool and calm, as if going to perform some 

 delicate surgical operation. We soon came in sight of a 

 buck feeding in a shallow pasture, and the boat glided 

 quietly within fifteen rods of it. The Doctor's hand was 

 firm, -and his aim steady. There was about him none of that 

 nervous agitation which is so apt to disturb the first efforts 

 at deer slaying. The boat came to a pause a moment, 

 when his rule rang out quick and sharp, waking the echoes 

 of the mountains around and reverberating along the shore. 

 At the crack of the rifle, the buck leaped high into the air, 

 and plunged madly towards the bank, up which he dashed 

 with a prodigious bound, made a single jump among the tall 

 grass,- and disappeared from the sight. The Doctor was 

 greatly mortified, supposing he had missed. He declared 

 solemnly that he had taken steady and sure aim just back of 

 the fore-shoulders of the deer, had a perfect sight upon it, 

 and that it did not fall in its tracks, could only be owing to 

 its bearing a charmed life. The boatman, however, knew 

 that the animal, from its actions, was mortally wounded. 

 He said nothing, but paddled quietly to the shore, and 

 there, just over the bank, in the tall grass and weeds, lay the 

 noble buck, stone dead. He had gone down and died with- 

 out a struggle. A proud man was the Doctor, as he passed 



