THE DANGERS OF FIRE-HUNTING. 31 



we knew he would not go with us — so constant a hunter scorned 

 so primitive a snare as the one we proposed. The negroes we did 

 not want, for the fewer in a party the better. So, one of us taking 

 a gun, and the other carrying a torch, we left the camp. 



The boys were chuckling together as they watched us go, the 

 dogs howled because they could not go with us, and Mike gave 

 one of his expressive coughs, that said as plainly as words, " Now 

 for it." 



/We were soon outside of the glare of the camp-fire, the little 

 creek was crossed, and our torch flashed brightly on the taper 

 trunks of the pine-trees, the climbing vines, and the broad-leafed 

 plants that grew by the pools of water. There was no wind, and 

 walking in the pine woods, there was no sound. Once in a long 

 while, a crane, disturbed in his wanderings, would be seen stalking 

 away, with his red head high in air, like a sentry on duty ; or the 

 sudden motion of the underbrush would tell us that some one of 

 the many little harlequins of the wood, that gambol most when 

 men do sleep, had fled from this unusual spectacle of a moving 

 light. But no deer rewarded our search ; no bear showed us his 

 heavy coat. 



" Faith," said the Doctor, " this romantic promenade is getting 

 somewhat long." 



" Think of the deer, one buck will well pay us." 



" Fudge ! if there was no one to laugh at us, I would have 

 turned back long ago. Give me the gun, and you take the light." 



Accordingly we changed positions — I going ahead, carrying the 

 torch before me, in such a manner that it would throw the light 

 ahead as much as possible, and none on our persons, and the 

 Doctor received the gun, and took my place directly behind and 

 shaded by my person. The night had become still darker, and a 

 misty rain commenced falling. We had left the pine woods, after 

 walking a couple of miles, and had come into a grove of lower 

 timber. The long moss drooped in curtains, the odour of magnolias 

 burdened the air, and every minute a denser copse would force us 

 to turn aside from our route. 



" Hush ! " whispered the Doctor suddenly, with a spasmodic 

 pull at my coat tail, " there 's a deer." 



