100 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



commonly made this public house their place of 

 rendezvous after the toils of the day. No small 

 portion of the conversation was in reference to a 

 buck, who for years had constantly been seen, yet 

 none of the heretofore successful hunters had been 

 able to circumvent him. It was evident that this 

 animal was of no ordinary size, as he was dubbed 

 by all with the soubriquet of the big buck, and one 

 regular old leather- stocking, whose opinion was 

 always listened to with the reverence due to an 

 authority, ventured to assert that he believed the 

 bullet would never be moulded that would tumble 

 him (the buck) in his tracks. This extraordinary 

 deer had almost escaped my memory, and I was 

 resting over my next morning's pipe, and beginning 

 to fear that my visit was longer than necessary, for 

 there was absolutely nothing to do but to eat and 

 sleep, unless the prices of pork, corn, or wheat had 

 possessed interest, when a man from the timber 

 land arrived with a load of wood, and held the follow- 

 ing conversation with the mixer of mint juleps, cock- 

 tails, &c. " Abe, have you e'er a shooting-iron that 

 you can loan this coon ? " 



Abe having replied in the negative, and inquired 

 the reason, was told that the most alfiatest big buck 

 had crossed the road about a mile off, and gone into 

 the Squire's corn. Quietly going to my bed-room, I 

 unpacked my heaviest gun, a ten-bore, in which I 

 have particular faith, and having noted the route that 

 the teamster had come by, I followed the back track 

 of his sled, and true enough found the prints of a 

 very heavy buck. The day was still young, myself in 

 good walking trim, and with an internal determine- 



