182 ANOTHER DAY AT CHEE-HA. 



It was a glorious winter's day sharp but 

 bracing. The sun looked forth with dazzling 

 brightness, as he careered through a cloudless sky ; 

 and his rays came glancing back from many an 

 ice-covered lagoon that lay scattered over the face 

 of the ground. The moan of an expiring north- 

 wester was faintly heard from the tops of the magni- 

 ficent forest pines. Three sportsmen, while it was 

 yet early, met at their trysting-place, to perpetrate 

 &rcdd against the deer! They were no novices, 

 those huntmen they had won trophies in many a 

 sylvan war; and they now took the field "of malice 

 prepense," with all the appliances of destruction at 

 their beck; practised drivers and a pack, often 

 proved, and now refreshed by three days' rest. 

 Brief was their interchange of compliment ; they 

 felt that such a day was not to be trifled away in 

 talk ; and they hallooed their hounds impatiently 

 into the drive yet not as greenhorns would have 

 done. " Keep clear of the swamps," was the order 

 to the drivers " leave the close covers ride not 

 where the ice crackles under the horse's hoof but 

 look closely into the sheltered knolls, where you 

 will find the deer sunning themselves after the last 

 night's frost." The effect of this order was soon 

 evident; for in the second knoll entered by the 

 hounds, a herd of deer were found thawing them- 



