300 CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES 



talk plain, I said, in a careless, uninterested sort of 

 a way: 



" I saw where you sat down on that log." 



"Did you?' 3 



"Yes; I sat down and rested there, too. I was 

 just about as tired and as disgusted and as mad as I 

 am now; but after sitting there ten or fifteen minutes, 

 I trudged along through that maple thicket just 

 below there, and when I got through it I saw a big 

 buck smelling along on a doe's track, up on the side- 

 hill, and I killed him and then started on after the 

 doe, and 



Pease had dropped his knife and fork and was 

 looking at me with his mouth half open and his eyes 

 half shut. 



"What did you say?" he inquired in a dazed, half- 

 whispered tone. 



" I say I killed the buck and then started 



" You killed a buck?" 



"Yes." 



"When?" he gasped, with his mouth and eyes a 

 little wider open. 



' ' This afternoon, ' ' said I, calmly and complacently. 



"Where?" 



" Why just below that thicket; just below where 

 you sat down on the log." 



The old man sat and gazed at me for two or three 

 minutes while I continued to eat as if nothing 

 unusual had happened. 



" Are you joking?" he said at last. 



"No; I'm telling you the straight truth. The 

 liver and heart are hanging out there on the corner 

 of the cabin; go out and look at them." 



