320 CROP CHASED BY THE BUCK. 



the fit is on the animal forgets its timid nater, and is bold 

 and fierce as a tiger. I've seen two sich in my day ; one of 

 'em sent me into a tree, and the other put me around a great 

 hemlock a dozen or twenty times, a good deal faster than I 

 like to travel in a general way, and if I hadn't hamstrung 

 him with my huntin' knife, maybe he'd have been chasm' ine 

 round that tree yet. Wai, as I was sayin' I was out among 

 the Adirondacks one fall, airly in November ; J'd wounded a 

 deer, and sent Crop forward on his trail to overtake and 

 secure him. It was a big buck, with long horns, and Crop 

 had a pretty good general idea of what sich things meant. 

 He was cautions about cultivatin' too close an acquaintance 

 with such an animal, unless something oncommon obligated 

 him to do so. I heard him bayin' a little way over a ridge 

 layiu' gist beyond where I shot the buck. I warn't in 

 any great hurry, for I knew Crop would attend to his case, 

 and I tho't I'd wipe out my rifle afore I loaded it again. I 

 was standin' by the upturned roots of a tall fir tree that had 

 been blown down, and in fallin' had lodged in a crotch of a 

 great birch, maybe twenty feet from the ground, and broke 

 off. I stepped onto the butt of the fallen spruce, and was 

 takin' my time to clean my gun, when I heard a crashin' 

 among the brush on the other side of the ridge, as if some 

 mighty big animal was comin' my way. I walked pretty 

 quick along up the slopin' log till I was, maybe fifteen feet 

 from the ground, and I saw Crop comin' over the ridge, in 

 what the Doctor would call a high state of narvous excite- 

 ment, with his tail between his legs, lookin' back over his 



