. A LONG DEER HUNT. 323 



eminently agreeable to the sportsman, but in this in- 

 stance made me so savage that I would have indulged 

 in the amiable weakness of breaking the gun-stock 

 over the nearest tree, if it had not been that my friend 

 might not see the joke of his gun being thus treated. 



So intent was I in watching the tracks that I did 

 not observe the exhausted deer had halted. Becoming 

 alarmed by my near approach, and deeming it advisable 

 to make a fresh effort to place distance between us, he 

 again put forth renewed energy. The brush, unfortu- 

 nately, was so remarkably dense, that although I got 

 several glimpses of his tawny hide, still never for suffi- 

 cient length of time to get a fair chance to shoot, and 

 I was unwillingly compelled to keep tracking, About 

 fifty yards from where I stood a small river, npt over 

 ninety feet across, named the Ambaras, wound its 

 sluggish, peaceful way towards its parent stream, the 

 Wabash, and direct for the nearest part of this river 

 the deer had gone. Still I could not bring myself to 

 believe that a buck at this season, with plenty of ice 

 in the water, would hazard an aquatic performance ; 

 but my doubts were soon solved, for on, reaching 

 the margin, with surprise I saw the deer upon the 

 ledge of ice attached to the bank struggling violently 

 to keep his footing, the disabled leg, which appeared to 

 hang powerless, evidently now causing serious incon- 



