210 HUNTING SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



wood and water. I saw plenty of wild geese, ducks, 

 cranes, curlews, and sparrows, also some hawks and cor- 

 morants, and at a distance about fifteen or twenty small 

 deer. The wood consisted of pine, birch, cedar, wild- 

 cherries, hawthorn, sweet-willow, honey-suckle, and 

 sumach. The rattlesnakes were very numerous this day, 

 with horned lizards, and grasshoppers : the latter kept 

 me in a constant state of feverish alarm, from the similarity 

 of the noise made by their wings to the sound of the 

 rattles of the snake, when preparing to dart on its prey. 

 I suffered severely during the day from hunger, and was 

 obliged to chew grass occasionally, which allayed it a 

 little. Late in the evening I arrived at a lake upwards 

 of two miles long, and a mile broad, the shores of which 

 were high, and well-wooded with large pine, spruce, and 

 birch. It was fed by two rivulets, from the north and 

 northeast, in which I observed a quantity of small fish ; 

 but had no means of catching any, or I should have made 

 a Sandwich Island meal. There was, however, an abun- 

 dant supply of wild cherries, on which I made a hearty 

 supper. I. slept on the bank of the nearest stream, just 

 where it entered the lake, but during the night the how- 

 ling of the wolves, and growling of bears, broke in terri- 

 bly on my slumbers, and "balmy sleep" was almost 

 banished from my eyelids. On rising the next morning, 

 the 21st, I observed on the opposite bank, at the mouth 

 of the river, the entrance of a large and apparently deep 

 cavern, from which I judged some of the preceding night's 

 music had issued. I now determined to make short jour- 

 neys, for two or three days, in different directions, in the 

 hope of falling on some fresh horse tracks ; and in the 



