THE GRAVE OF THE SILENT HUNTER. 201 



hardly necessary to repeat. I laughed heartily at the incident, 

 and Charlie at once forget his wrath in a loud burst of merri- 

 ment, when I recalled to his recollection the droll way in 

 "which our guide had acted for the last mile. He had been 

 up to that time striding just ahead of our horses, gossiping 

 in the gayest possible of saturnine humors, asking us all sorts 

 of unsophisticated questions about the ways of the " settle- 

 ments," and telling us quaint anecdotes about Old Jake, who 

 was the greatest man in the world, according to his estima- 

 tion. Indeed, he had been keeping us in one continued roar 

 of laughter at his simplicity, and a certain shrewdness 

 combined, when suddenly a new thought seemed to have 

 struck him. He had paused for an instant, — looked around 

 him furtively, and then drawing over towards the left hand 

 side of the ridge, had, from that time, commenced bearing 

 down that side further and further, until when we had nearly 

 reached this spot, he pointed here, without a word, and the 

 next we saw of him he was " splitting it" down the ridge. 



"You remember, Charlie, we could get nothing, not one 

 ■word out of him, with all your merciless rallying, after he 

 made that sudden stop ! Depend upon it, there is some fun 

 in this, and that fellow has got this bluff-point somehow 

 mixed up in the ridiculous superstitions common to his class!" 



After many merry comments upon this text, in the course 

 of which, with our loud talking and laughter, we violated all 

 the accepted rules of *' driving," which require, peremptorily, 

 the most profound silence on the part of the " stander" as he 

 approaches his "stand," we came to the conclusion that as 

 the mischief had no doubt already been done, and the deer 

 turned back by the sound of our voices, we had just as well 

 take it easy until the driver came in. So, seating, or rather 

 stretching ourselves upon some mossy boulders, scattered 

 around, we chatted away the next half hour very cozily, 

 although an occasional eddy of the wind would bring up to our 

 ears the distant babble of the hounds in the valley, and the 



