252 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



were succeeded by others in clumps and clusters, and festooned 

 by blackberry vines. Ghostly-looking sights, stumps that had 

 supernatural shapes, and tombstone trunks, blanched white by 

 rain, marked the banks. 



" Kee-honk ! kee-honk ! screams a blue heron in aspirated accents, 

 as he springs into the air, fanning the night with his great wings 

 in measured beats that can be heard long after he is beyond sight. 

 The musk-rats come out in the circle of light before the boat, in 

 wonderment at the pale fire that awakens them, and dive beneath 

 the waters when the boat is on them. The boat swings around in 

 the turning of the stream, and I see the erect head and large ears 

 of a deer. It is a doe, for there are no horns. A moment of 

 pause to be sure that I am right, and the ringing shot awakens 

 a hundred echoes, and clouds the air with smoke. 



" ' Why, ye'nt seen no deer, did yer ? ' asked Hank. 



" ' Yes, a doe.* 



" A dip of the paddle sends the boat to the shore and then dis- 

 closes to my mortified gaze the blanched limb of a tree, standing 

 up in the grass, the veriest spectre of a deer. 



" ' Well, your doe is dished now — ha ! ha !' laughs Hank. 



" I load my rifle rather humbly. ' Ready — push on ! ' 



" ' Don't you want to see if you hit it V 



" ' No ; push on, will you ? ' 



" The boat glided forward again, mile after mile, in the same 

 spectral journey, as still as the dead. My mind floats along with 

 the water-bugs that run ahead of me and the shadows. I see 

 the stars floating in the water, and those overhead likewise, and 

 many more stars than ever shone in these latitudes. In fact, I 

 fell asleep. I don't think I had slept long when I was awakened 

 by a shrill noise, resembling the letting off of steam from a small 

 steam-engine when the valve is suddenly opened and as suddenly 

 closed again. I have heard such noises in a country church be- 

 fore the commencement of exercises, when some plethoric deacon 

 blowed his brazen nose, — only, if anything, the night-bugle was 

 a little more emphatic, and several times repeated in quick suc- 

 cession. 'What's that ?' I whispered. 



" ' Deer,' responded Hank, in a whisper, swinging around the 



