496 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



the grass like a great snake out of its lair of night, with 

 here and there the golden morning glistening on its scales. 



It was a strange, lonely scene, and a dream-like hush was 

 over it, so that we could hear our hearts beat above the soft 

 lapsing of the deeply winnowed oars. It seemed so wild, and 

 was so still here, that no other sounds should intrude but the 

 splash of the plunging bull-frog, the rustling ripple of the 

 wading deer among the flags, and the musically shrill metallic 

 warble of the black-winged scarlet tanager, from out the deep 

 shadows of the hill-side forest of old pines and hemlock. 

 Now is the time when the deer begin to come down from the 

 hills to feed upon the tender grasses and water plants that 

 grow in the bed and along the edges of the stream ; and we 

 may expect any moment, when we make the short turns, 

 which, although the stream is deep, are often hardly long 

 enough for the boat to lie in, or wide enough for the oars, 

 to see a tawny head uplifted in the startle, and reaching out 

 from the long grass over the channel to gaze at our coming 

 with pricked ears. 



Piscator and I drew lots for the first shot at starting, and 

 I won, so that I had the forward seat, and with rifle at 

 "present," I sat in statue-like and breathless expectation as 

 we made each turn, and came upon a new and always wilder 

 and more lovely picture of green islets, deep receding coves, 

 where the trout leaped like quick gleams of moonlight over 

 the white lilies or small meadows waving to and fro, in live 

 contrast with the gray and solemn-looking boulders of granite 

 which are piled up behind them, with the matted and snake- 

 like roots of the ancient pines above, twisted and twined 

 along their edges. I was so lulled and enchanted by the 

 constantly varying beauty and the presiding repose of these 

 scenes, that, with all the eager instincts of the sportsman 

 rampant in my veins, I could not help hoping, at moments, 

 that no deer would make its appearance, and thus compel 

 me to mar this harmonious calm. Nor did it happen so, for, 



