FOREST COOKERY. 85 



seem to understand the matter at all. He was greatly 

 alarmed, to be sure, but we heard him whistling every 

 few minutes, and beating the ground with his feet, as 

 if bounding up and down, some forty or fifty rods 

 away in the forest, for a long time. He was shut out 

 from our view, as we were from his, by the dense 

 foliage between us. At last we heard him bound 

 away in earnest, and all was still again. Our deer 

 was a small two year old, and exceedingly fat and 

 tender. We supped on his sirloin, roasted before the 

 fire that night, and that with a relish seldom equalled. 

 The science of roasting a sirloin of venison in the 

 woods, is not to be despised. One must understand it 

 to succeed well. Two crotched sticks are set up be- 

 fore, and at a proper distance from the fire, and from 

 each other ; across these in the fork, and at the height 

 of about six feet, is laid another. The venison is sus- 

 pended from this cross-bar by a string, close enough 

 to the*fire to roast, and is kept coii^rntly turning, so 

 that all sides get an equal portion of the heat. We 

 used a pint basin for a dripping-pan, from which, ever 

 and anon, we basted it with the rich gravy that 

 dripped from it while roasting. Birch bark, just 

 peeled from the trees, served for platters and plates 



