208- THE GULF COAST OF FLORIDA. 



bank some distance and then turned toward the house again. 

 Will kept turning steadily from right to left and from left to 

 right, throwing the light over as large an area as possible and 

 scanning the ground closely. Finally he stopped and said to 

 me in a whisper, " There are a pair of eyes." He told me 

 to step in front of him. I did so, and he adjusted the light 

 so that I could see plainly what appeared to be two balls of 

 fire, only a short distance from us. I stepped behind again, 

 and we discussed them for a few minutes. Will said they 

 were not a deer's eyes, that a deer always gazes intently and 

 steadily at the light without moving, while these looked at it 

 a moment, looked away, then looked at the light again. 

 Furthermore he said these were too close to the ground to be 

 a deer's eyes ; that a deer holds its head high in the air when 

 puzzled and frightened by the light. 



When these and other points had been canvassed thorough- 

 ly we walked toward the object and found it to be a yearling 

 calf. A less skillful and experienced fire-hunter than Will 

 would have blazed away at this pair of eyes at first sight, and 

 probably have had to pay from five to ten dollars for his sport. 

 We moved on, and as we entered a patch of shrub palmetto 

 where the ground had recently been burned over and new 

 grass had sprung up, old Rover sniffed the air anxiously, 

 whined, and in other ways gave unmistakable evidence that 

 he scented game. Will said, " Look out for eyes now, this 

 is a favorite feeding-ground for deer." We examined the 

 sand, which was bare in places, and saw plenty of fresh signs. 

 We moved cautiously on a few rods farther, when Will stopped 

 suddenly and looked earnestly to the left. I followed the 

 direction of his gaze and saw a pair of flaming eyeballs not 

 more than thirty yards from where we stood. Not a word 

 was spoken by either of us. We both knew intuitively 

 what they belonged to. Old Rover trembled all over like an 



