A FALL HUNTING TRIP. 97 



go back to the base camp and bring up some more 

 provisions ; while Jack Wells and I remained to hunt 

 towards Island Pond, a lake lying to the westward. 

 On the previous evening we had seen several herds, 

 and hoped that we had perhaps found a large body 

 of the migrating deer. 



However, when we set out after breakfast in the 

 direction of Island Pond, we walked a couple of miles, 

 seeing nothing save a couple of does. The features of 

 the country now began to change somewhat. Large 

 hummocky expanses of barren crowned with boulders 

 spread ahead of us ; there was less marshland, though 

 from the hills over which we were walking we could 

 see two or three sheets of water partially surrounded 

 by trees. Small clumps of juniper and of birch, spruce, 

 and pine were scattered over the landscape. 



It was just past ten o'clock when we saw the first 

 stag of that day standing on the ridge of a barren ; 

 half-a-dozen does were lying on the ground near him. 

 As the wind happened to be favourable and the cover 

 good, there was little difficulty in approaching within two 

 hundred and fifty yards of him, but, to our disappoint- 

 ment, his head, which had looked very well against the 

 sky-line, proved on closer inspection to be merely 

 average, and after watching him descend to a marsh 

 we climbed higher up the little hill we were on, and 

 from there I descried some deer, including a tolerable 

 stag, lying down in some soft ground to the south- 

 west. 



I was watching him intently, when Jack Wells said, 

 " There is another stag on the hill over there. I think 

 he is a good one." 



It must be owned that at this time, although knowing 



H.C. H 



