AFTER VIRGINIAN DEER 175 



nothing but blackened pine stems, and causing enormous loss 

 to the lumber company. It is a curious fact that after one of 

 the bush fires in a needle-wood country no similar trees spring 

 up ; brambles are the first to appear, and then hardwood scrub, 

 oak, birch, poplar, and ash. On the other hand, should a 

 hardwood forest be destroyed by fire none of those trees are 

 found among the new vegetation, nothing but pines, the various 

 spruces, and balsams. No reason can be given for this, but 

 fact it is, and an undisputed one. 



About 6 p.m. the steamer arrived off" a tent pitched on the 

 Ontario shore, and my guide and I with camp impedimenta 

 landed, the steamer going a few miles further to the foot of the 

 " Long Soo," and the end of the long tramway which runs across 

 the portage as far as the southern end of Temiscamaing Lake. We 

 were received by the owners of the tent, two professional men 

 from Mattawa, who spend two months of every "fall" in the 

 woods in quest of deer, and by two clergymen on a short visit for 

 change of air and scene and in the hope of sport. It being dark 

 we did not pitch our tent but accepted the hospitality offered by 

 the others in the shape of supper and a night's lodging. The 

 former, made up, as all meals are, of pork, bread, and tea,' was 

 greatly appreciated ; not so the latter, for we six had to lie like 

 the proverbial sardines so closely packed together in the very 

 small tent that the least movement of one disturbed all the 

 others. The sheet-iron stove in our canvas home used for 

 cooking and warming purposes and generally red-hot, made the 

 atmosphere in the closed tent very trying to most of us ; we 

 gasped under our blankets and were not at all offended if a more 

 chilly neighbour seized more than his share ; towards the early 

 morning, however, when it was freezing hard outside and the 

 fire had long since gone out, a fight commenced for every inch 

 of blanket, the tug- of- war continuing until to everybody's satis- 

 faction daylight appeared, and the danger, which every moment 

 had become more threatening, of shocking the parsons' ears by 

 some remark more expressive and forcible than polite, passed 

 away. We were encamped close to the river in some hardwood 

 bush ; three deer were hanging up by the hocks, one buck and 

 two does, for in shooting for the market all was meat that came 

 before my friends' rifles. These beautifully shaped deer are 

 plentiful on both sides of the river, and are hunted every year by 



