174: A DAY AT CHEE-HA. 



yon must know, is hunter's law with ns, on the kill- 

 ing a first deer). As onr young sportsman started 

 np from the ablution his face glaring like an Indian 

 chief's in all the splendor of war-paint Eobin the 

 hunter touched his cap and thus accosted him : 



" Maussa Tickle, if you wash off dat blood dis day 

 you neber hab luck again so long as you hunt." 



"Wash it off!" cried we all, with one accord; 

 " who ever heard of such a folly. He can be no true 

 sportsman, who is ashamed of such a livery." 



Thus beset, and moved thereunto, by other sage 

 advices showered upon him by his companions in 

 sport, he wore his bloody mask to the close of that 

 long day's sport, and sooth to say, returned to 

 receive the congratulations of his young and lovely 

 wife, his face still adorned with the stains of victory. 

 "Whether he was received, as victors are wont to 

 be, returning from other fields of blood, is a point 

 whereon I shall refuse to satisfy the impertinent 

 curiosity of my reader ; but I am bound, in defer- 

 ence to historic truth, to add that the claims of 

 our novice, to the merit and penalties of this day's 

 hunt, were equally incomplete, for it appeared on 

 after inspection, that Loveleap had given the mor- 

 tal wound, and that Tickle had merely given the 

 "coup de grace" to a deer, that, if unfired on, 

 would have fallen of itself, in a run of a hundred 



