184 SPORT INDEED 



furnish the same foreknowledge of bad weather ? 

 You may admit all this and still ask : " But why 

 should the old tree give up the ghost and tumble over 

 at the approach of what it knows is coming ? " Ah, 

 reader, you must go to Nature herself for an answer 

 to your question. It may be that the tree had lived 

 its allotted time and knew it. It may be that its 

 foresight saw two alternatives to tumble over or 

 be blown down. It may be that the latter would 

 have been too great a blow for its pride, and there- 

 fore it embraced the former. These, of course, are 

 only " may-bes," and it may be you will put them on 

 your list of " mayn't-bes." But enough of this digres- 

 sion. 



I have said that my spirits were losing their elas- 

 ticity under the pressure of the darkness. Possibly 

 you think that an enthusiastic hunter should be able 

 to bear with complacence the incidental plagues of 

 his trade, however unbearable they might be to other 

 people. Perhaps he should, yet I don't hesitate to 

 aver that a fruitless watch through a stretch of dark- 

 ness if the stretch be long enough and black enough 

 will cool the enthusiasm of any " sport," even though 

 it burn with the fervor of Nimrod's. 



But the end was near. A faint glow began to 

 break the gloom and light the eastern sky. The red 

 squirrels were already awake and busy in stuffing my 

 ears with their bark and chatter ; the black ducks had 



