ADIRONDAC. 97 



By this time I had got beyond the nervous point, 

 and had come round to perfect coolness and com- 

 posure again, but preternaturally vigilant and keen. 

 I was ready for any disclosures; not a sound was 

 heard. In a few moments the trees along-shore were 

 faintly visible. Every object put on the shape of a 

 gigantic deer. A large rock looked just ready to 

 bound away. The dry limbs of a prostrate tree were 

 surely his antlers. 



But what are those two luminous spots ? Need 

 the reader to be told what they were ? In a moment 

 the head of a real deer became outlined; then his 

 neck and foreshoulders ; then his whole body. There 

 he stood, up to his knees in the water, gazing fixedly 

 at us, apparently arrested in the movement of putting 

 his head down for a lily-pad, and evidently thinking 

 it was some new-fangled moon sporting about there. 

 " Let him have it," said my prompter, and the 

 crash came. There was a scuffle in the water, and a 

 plunge in the woods. " He 's gone," said I. " Wait 

 a moment," said the guide, " and I will show you." 

 Rapidly running the canoe ashore, we sprang out, 

 and holding the jack aloft, explored the vicinity by 

 its light. There, over the logs and brush, I caught 

 the glimmer of those luminous spots again. But, 

 poor thing ! there was little need of the second shot, 

 which was the unkindest cut of all, for the deer had 

 already fallen to the ground, and was fast expiring. 

 The success was but a very indifferent one, after all, 

 *s die victim turned out to be only an old doe, upon 



