64 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



that babbled in the bushes and wailed in the air, as though the 

 echoes caught the sound and mellowed it down to a continuous 

 accord. Scipio felt the contagion, and dancing up and down, 

 relieved himself as follows : — 



" Dar dey come ! dar dey come ! Bress de Lord ! don't dey skin 

 'em — dat beats dis chile ; hy ah ha, hy ah ha ! — go it, Music ! " 



The dogs had come half way down the cover, when a buck and 

 doe broke out together. He did not appear to be of unusual size ; 

 but I could not wait any longer, and fired. He fell and rose again, 

 running over the brow of a little hill with his tail down ; here he 

 drew the fire of my neighbour on the right, and fell to rise no more. 

 The doe halted a moment where her comrade fell, as if waiting 

 for him to rise, when away down the woods a rifle rung its sharp 

 crack and she fell like a clod almost on the body of her mate. I 

 knew Mike's rifle by the effect, even if I did not know its 

 sound. 



The hounds came closer; we could see the grass and bushes 

 moving where they were winding about, and now and then their 

 sickle-shaped tails above the weeds. The clamour increased, the 

 dogs were almost through, and yet no white buck to correspond 

 with the negro's description of the big buck they had so often 

 hunted. At this instant I saw rise up from the very edge of the 

 bushes, a buck, that from his stately size I at once recognised to 

 be the big buck. He had evidently been watching the preparations 

 for the hunt, and selecting the time our guns were discharged, he 

 rushed out between me and one of the negroes, and, without 

 regarding either, flew down the open pine woods at a gallop. 

 Hardly had he cleared the valley, when I heard Jackson shouting, 

 and saw him riding hard toward my stand ; but the dogs coming 

 out and taking the deer's track with loud clamour, prevented my 

 hearing. I sprang into my saddle, and went flying alongside of 

 the hounds, with the air soughing through my hair, and the deer 

 in view a hundred yards ahead. In a moment or two Lou Jackson 

 and the Doctor were in sight, their horses skimming the open 

 woods like birds. Then came the sorrel mare, and next Scipio on 

 the pony, and then in the distance Jackson and Mike, with all the 

 negroes that were mounted. Faster, still faster, heart and sense 



