THE DANGERS OF FIRE-HUNTING. 33 



" Was anything ever so provoking ! " said Poke, as the eyes 

 vanished in the darkness. 



" If it is the devil, he will have you now." 



" How can you talk so ? " said the Doctor, with a strong accent 

 on the " can." 



 There is your deer, Poke, in the windfall," said I, as I caught 

 sight of the eyes moving rapidly along near the mass of timber 

 that lay heaped and knotted together. 



" That 's no deer," said Poke ; " no cloven-foot could ever go 

 over that windfall that way. I would rather see the night hunts- 

 man of the Hartz Mountains than see those eyes again." As he 

 was speaking, I saw in the inky darkness ahead of us another pair 

 of eyes, and two or three pairs on the left. The truth flashed 

 on me. The scarcity of the deer, the proximity of the windfall, 

 the restlessness of those baleful eyes, all gave me the clew — the 

 wolves were around us. 



A word to Poke, and the affair was explained, and we stood 

 still for consultation. We tried new caps on our gun ; but it was 

 of no use, the cones were saturated with water. We turned to- 

 ward the camp, but in our confusion we forgot the direction. To 

 heighten the misery of the scene, our torch was almost burnt out 

 — let that die, and the rest could be easily divined. 



We were standing, at the time, under a grove of small pecan 

 trees, and at that instant a low snort was heard from the shadow 

 near us, like the cough of a dog. 



Poke did not say a word ; but, dropping the gun, and seizing 

 a limb of one of the trees over his head, with an agility for which 

 I had never given him the least credit, elevated himself to the 

 crotch, about ten feet from the ground. 



I did not want to do anything of the kind, of course not ; I 

 would rather have placed my back against a tree, and won a 

 glorious death in battle against my numerous foes ; but, alack ! for 

 a bad example, I dropped the torch, that broke in pieces in falling, 

 and, clasping the nearest tree, which happened to be a medium- 

 sized gum-tree, soon scrambled up to a place of safety. Lucky 

 was it for me that I had that torch in my hand, for when it fell 

 it lay scattered around the base of the tree, still flickering and 



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